The Plated Challenge: KFC Nashville Hot + Georgia Gold

(bright string music)

I've always sort of admired and looked up to

the Colonel's sort of level of consistency.

I hope that one day, I could sort of

achieve that kind of consistency myself.

The inspiration behind the dish that I'll be doing today

kinda goes back to my childhood,

so I wanna bring a little bit of nostalgia

back into fried chicken.

Fried chicken.

It's kind of like in our DNA, so to speak.

No chef's gonna lie to you and say

he just cooks for his customers.

Every chef cooks because he cooks the food

that he likes to eat.

(intense music) When I was trying

to conceive a dish for the Nashville Hot Chicken,

my concept was basically to light a fire,

watch it all burn down,

and rise from the ashes like a chicken.

If you think about it, you know,

the symbolic relationship between chicken and hay.

It eats it, it sleeps in it,

it gives birth in it, so why not, like,

decorate the plate and, you know, showcase the hay

to the chicken?

One of the greatest things about dried ice,

when it turns into a gas,

it's one of the best couriers of scent.

But also a really beautiful visual.

Peppercorns are like, important to everyone.

But me?

I'm so passionate about peppercorns.

Black, white, red, pink.

They come in all different varieties.

I really wanna showcase Nashville spices

in Nashville Hot Chicken 'cause it's so famous.

And I'm gonna stack all my beautiful

Nashville Hot Chicken on top.

It just really gets me going.

For the Georgia Gold dish,

the thing that inspired me was

different elements of something that is essentially food

but seems more than food.

I'm drawing the inspiration from honey.

I go to sleep: honey.

I wake up: honey.

You know, the honeycomb, smear it around

so that you can still see those pockets

of where those bees have been harvesting that.

When I'm constructing the Georgia Gold dish,

I like to think of many things,

how it smells, how it eats, and definitely

the texture that you're gonna have in your mouth.

I'm gonna be scorching some peppers

to kinda give it that smokiness

that's gonna really add to

the already crispy chicken, you know?

So I was gonna, like, throw everything in a wok.

Like, you know.

I use the truffles 'cause they make it more luxurious.

One of the most important elements

that you wanna add to a dish like that

to bring it all together is sort of

like a crispy texture, and we've absolutely nailed that

with the Georgia Gold crispy chicken.

[Paul] I draw a lot of inspiration from my fellow chefs.

You know, there's so many fantastic chefs out there

who are coming up with brand new ideas that

no one's ever seen before.

[Matt] I think sometimes limitations on creativity

help you evolve more creatively.