Recreating Maangchi's Dakbokkeumtang (Spicy Braised Chicken) From Taste

Hey everyone, it's Christina.

I am here in the Bon Appetit test kitchen

to have a very secret conversation

about my friend, Chris Morocco.

Once again, we are putting his super taster abilities

to the test, and this is Maangchi's Dakbokkeumtang,

which is also known as spicy braised chicken.

And Maangchi is kind of the Korean Julia Child of YouTube.

Chris is going to get exactly two days

to replicate this dish using

every ingredient and perfect technique.

The only catch is that he will only be able

to use his senses of smell, taste, and touch.

At no point in the two days is he going

to be allowed to look at this dish.

I'll come back to see his final creation

and I will be the judge.

[dramatic music]

[clinking]

[sniffing]

[dramatic music]

Is this a Kiss mask?

I'm getting sort of Starchild thing happening.

Oh, very interesting.

I'd say it's some kind of chicken, vegetable,

broth-y stew kind of situation.

I need to work my way through this.

I think it could be chile pepper.

And the pepper itself is a pretty thin-walled pepper.

It doesn't taste raw, but it doesn't necessarily feel

like it's been cooked to death if that makes sense.

Would I be able to get a plate on the side

to be able to lay some ingredients out?

[thumping] Whoa.

So I have here what seems to be

what I would guess is a potato.

I feel like I'm getting some garlic.

This is really actually quite delicious.

You guys did a great job, you have.

I've got a slightly slimy, squishy thing

inside another slimy, squishy thing.

It's very firm.

I have another element.

I'm gonna go ahead and call this chicken breast.

What the hell is going on over my right shoulder?

Is somebody sandblasting the countertops

while we're doing this?

It just seems a bit rude.

[laughing]

Is that you? Yeah.

What are you doing?

I'm trying to crack rice.

With what? A skillet.

It's sort of like, I don't know,

trying to have somebody solve math problems

when they're mildly hypothermic, but that's fine.

[laughing]

And they got you in the friggin' tank.

You're freezing to death

and then they're having you do addition.

There are these things in channels.

Like a very soft floppy thing

inside a very sharp-edged roasted meat thing.

Something in the pear or apple family,

but why would you put ... [blending]

Man, Anna's really on one today, huh?

Why would you stuff this thing in those slashes?

It's kind of incomprehensible.

I mean, maybe if you could see it.

Oh, man. [grunts]

[sighs]

Man, it is sweet.

It is hot.

It is salty.

[grunts]

There's funk and there's complexity and there's depth.

[sighs]

It's fiery and it's intense and I really friggin' like it.

I would say this dish comes from Korea,

and I feel like that mystery fruit thing is Asian pear.

I don't know what happens to Asian pear when you braise it.

I have a feeling we're gonna find out.

This is still messing me up.

It could be ramp.

I might just do that,

because it's not just as simple as a scallion.

This does not feel like David Chang.

It's not just over the top flavor.

Maybe it's some really specific treatment

somebody like Maangchi is doing?

[triumphant music] Maybe.

That was quite the ride.

All right, Gabby, easy.

I think I've got all the elements.

My tube-y tubes, this kind of allium sitch.

Ramps, thin-walled chile segments

with some seeds happening in there.

And then we have our big chunks of brais-y potato.

I think they're Yukon.

Was there skin on that?

Honestly, to go back,

it's like was there [beep] skin on that potato?

I don't think so.

We have Mr. Chicken, with slashes.

I feel like I'm gonna air on the side

of throwing it into some kind of marinade.

Soy sugar, rice vin.

We need mystery pear sitch.

And then I have broth, Gochujang, garlic, okay.

We're gonna head over to the supermarket,

see what I can find, hopefully that'll prove eliminating.

We will see, cool.

Got my bags.

[dramatic playful music]

I'm feeling pretty good about the fact

that it's boneless, skinless chicken breast.

Okay, I'm gonna get the soy sauce as well, sugar.

Let's go see what they have for Gochujang.

Gochujang is fermented soybeans and chile peppers.

It usually has wheat flour as a thickener,

sugar as a sweetener.

Gochugaru is Korean chili flakes.

That in concert with Gochujang is a substantial portion

of the base of certain Korean stews.

The smoking gun.

[whooshing]

Red [beep] Leicester.

That's where you kind of lose the most points.

I just don't wanna have a Red Leicester moment

where I walk right by the key ingredient

that I should have seen.

This is a ramp.

This stalk feels kind of right.

I'm 80% on this.

I'm gonna pick up a couple bunches of scallions

just for safety, but I really don't think it was scallion.

All right, let's get some potatoes.

A couple heads of garlic.

[clattering] Pepper down.

This is an Asian pear.

It has a very particular crunchy texture,

and I think this mystery fruit ingredient

was holding together so beautifully,

even though it was cooked so thoroughly.

Plums, peaches, mangoes, regular apples, regular pears.

I don't think it's any of that.

First things first, I didn't get

that much flavor from the chicken to be honest.

Whatever flavor is there, I'm walking.

I'm free-range.

I feel like something salty was applied to that chicken,

and then I feel like it was roasted, okay?

That's just how I feel.

Couple tablespoons of soy sauce.

Unseasoned rice vinegar.

I'm gonna put in a little bit of sugar.

It's really hard to say it,

what flavors were present on the chicken,

but this will just be our starting point.

[ripping]

I'm gonna do some slashes in here.

I'm gonna let these sit in here.

Not for that long,

I just want them to pick up a little bit of color.

A little bit of jush.

What am I doing?

I'm not doing tons of garlic here.

Maybe I'll do a couple cloves, sliced.

Just a touch of neutral oil.

Sweat out some of that garlic.

Just ever so slightly golden around the edges.

Throwing in some water.

All right, so while that's heating up,

we've only found the extra spicy Gochujang.

Oh, it's hot.

[clinging] [grunts]

Gochugaru is Korean chili flakes.

They're sweet and they're earthy.

They're seedless, so they're not super hot,

which means you can use a lot of them.

So we'll do a teaspoon of Gochugaru.

Here's a tablespoon of the Gochujang going in.

You can see how much flavor

these ingredients can give your food.

[grunts]

I like it.

What I felt in this dish was that the body

was coming mainly from the slight breakdown

of the potato that was cooked in the broth.

So I think they were peeled potatoes.

I did not get potato skin.

This might be right, these ...

[tense music]

I don't know, I'm gonna do these maybe in half.

A couple of these bigger guys.

You know that expression, you eat with your eyes?

I've always been made fun of my entire life

for eating with my nose first.

I always smell everything before I taste it.

When I was a kid, I was obsessed with the smell

of this strawberry shortcake branded shampoo.

Would not put it down for anything.

I just loved the smell, yeah.

Moment of truth, Asian pear.

We're gonna see what happens.

So I don't think I had skin on that pear.

[tense music]

So this is what I was sort of sensing.

You have one kind of cut face,

and then you have this natural shape to the thing.

It's almost like pear and watermelon had a baby.

It's so good, you want a piece?

Sorry, a little garlic on the cutting board.

[Christina] Thank you.

I'm hoping that it's gonna hold together.

If it doesn't, then I don't know.

I don't even know what to tell you.

I would say I am 75% confident of what I have in this pot.

I have neutral oil, garlic, water, Gochujang,

Gochugaru, Yukon gold potatoes, and Asian pear.

Let's get a couple pieces of chicken

on a sizzle platter and into the oven

before getting finished in the stew, 425.

So these are Korean hot peppers.

Let's check out what happens

when we put a chile in a dry skillet.

But then the ramps.

I don't think I want the leaves for these.

I've got a slightly slimy, squishy thing

inside another slimy, squishy thing.

It's very firm.

See how when you get inside there,

it kind of gives you layers upon layers.

The transitions with the scallion are kind of ...

Now I'm doubting everything, sucks.

A ramp is very firm, whereas a scallion,

as soon as this is cooked, it becomes very slimy.

I'm leaning towards this just because it stayed way firmer.

I'm just gonna quickly sear them off on the side.

Ramps going in.

And then add them to the pot with our stew,

and see where that gets me.

I feel like I'm going out on a few limbs here.

See that flap? See that flop?

It's really hot.

That's the texture that I'm pretty sure I was tasting.

That was a real moment.

So I've got my sizzled ramps.

I'm just checking on what's happening with these chiles.

The pepper itself is a pretty thin-walled pepper.

But it didn't taste charred, you know what I mean?

So I'm not sure about that.

It's been 10 minutes.

Looks a little goofy, right?

'Cause this is really what I have to slot

a little slice of braised Asian pear into.

It's not beautiful right now.

It's not doing it for me.

I feel a little bit uncomfortable with how that looks.

Let's just do this.

Chicken's going in the pot, how about that?

Can you live with that?

How do you like me now?

This, there's something a little bit unpleasantly leathery.

Like really shriveled.

I felt they were a little bit plumper before.

And visually, it's just very upsetting.

So I've got my braised potato.

I'm gonna get my chicken, and I'm gonna get some

of that Asian pear in those slashes.

This is suddenly just looking insane to me.

I need to kind of probably scale these guys back.

[exhales]

Decisions, man, so I'm gonna trim these down.

Doing this right now, it seems just as a workflow

who's plating a dish like this.

You've got scalding hot chicken burning your fingers.

Are you really gonna sit there

and fish out bits of braised pear

and construct it like this? It's insane.

I'm ladling my broth over my plate here,

and I'm gonna top it with those blistered chiles.

Something like that.

This was my first crack at this dish.

These ramp middle sections,

I feel like they should not be quite so hard-cooked.

That one's got some whack flavor, I don't know.

Then the chile component.

I feel pretty good with this.

Kinda makes sense texture-wise.

Feeling good about the potatoes.

[grunts]

Heat's certainly good in the broth.

I need to pay attention to the flavors

on the chicken a little bit more.

All the flavor from the broth just completely

washed out with what I did to it.

The pear could get cooked a little bit less.

But otherwise, I am feeling 90% confident

about that being Asian pear and not something else.

Taste, this is running at 90%.

I feel like I've got the correct flavors here.

Appearance, maybe more like 85%.

I just can't quite tell what's happening

with that ramp situation exactly.

In terms of ingredients, I'd say 85%.

I think there could be some things

happening with the chicken.

There could be an additional ingredient or two in the broth.

Technique, I'm gonna give myself 90.

I really think the chicken's being roasted,

the stew is being constructed like a stew,

the chiles are being blistered in some fashion,

so I feel pretty good about most of that.

Overall, I think I'm at 85 to 87, in solid B territory.

If I get anything higher than a C, I will be very happy.

I'm about to taste the dish for the last time

before I have to put my own version of the dish up,

and I need to try to filter out the noise

and just see what's really there.

[dramatic music]

Is it happening?

Has it happened?

[Cameraman] It's happened.

It's happened, okay, cool, we're back.

I'm just trying to separate all the elements here.

[clinking]

And this chicken has really been opened up.

That's kinda wild.

And some of these slashes, you've got a couple of slices.

I'm picking up maybe just a little bit

of ginger flavor on the chicken, possibly.

Maybe I'll put a little bit of grated ginger in my marinade.

I'm thinking back on how my Asian pear tasted raw.

This one is tasting slightly different to me,

but I was so happy with the way it cooked up,

so I'm gonna stick with that.

This seems to be something that I missed on the first pass.

I'm gonna say that's white onion.

It's utterly flavorless.

Man, this is messing me up.

It's not my dish.

There's this little knot where the shaft

is meeting the top greens, and those top greens seem

to be hollow the way a scallion is.

Not in the way that a ramp is.

It tastes so plump and yet cooked.

It doesn't taste dried out and leathery

the way those ramps got.

The ramps, I think that was kind of a dead end.

I don't know, anyway.

Still feeling confident that this is a Korean dish.

My first guess was Maangchi. [triumphant music]

I'm gonna stick with it.

I really feel pushed to the extremes.

Whatever exactly is happening here,

I'm kind of blown away, really.

Tomorrow, I'm gonna be presenting my second version

of this dish to Christina Chaey and we'll see what happens.

And I might just be dropping my imagined score

from a B to a, let's call it a C plus.

So yeah, some things to think about.

[dramatic playful music]

We're back, day two.

Sun's out, knives out, I'm ready.

What is that? That's my smoothie, sorry.

I meant to have drunk it all before you came over.

We had a pretty deep heart-to-heart

about the concept of this dish last night.

No spoilers. No, no.

Don't worry, you were having

an existential moment about your chicken.

Clearly, something's been done to it,

but what? Yeah.

How positive are you that it's chicken?

Somebody has really tricked me into believing

it's a boneless, skinless chicken breast.

What's your biggest remaining question mark?

Oh. Is it the fruit?

I mean, I feel like--

Can I just say? Oh, yeah.

You know how to do this.

I know the body of knowledge you have

about what you're doing here, and you have it.

[in foreign language]

Okay. Okay, I'll see you later.

All right, I'll check with you in a little bit.

What did that mean?

What the [beep] is she talking about?

[clattering] [slamming]

[thumping]

All right, let's start with the broth.

Garlic is going into the neutral oil,

and I'm gonna do the onion right alongside.

I'm kind of just going with the white onion,

in kind of big pieces.

Two tablespoons unseasoned rice vin,

half a teaspoon of sugar, two tablespoons regular soy sauce,

and then I'm gonna grate ginger into that.

Something happened with the chicken,

and it's my job to figure out what.

Where'd our spoons go?

I don't know how anybody cooks

without a hundred spoons in a day.

Are they not tasting their food?

Molly, do you use tasting spoons every day,

or do you just taste with one spoon?

What's your tasting spoon MO?

I walk over there and get a new one every time I need one.

It's really inefficient.

Look, I don't ask for a lot.

I just want spoons.

I want spoons everywhere.

Every station should have two things of spoons.

Big spoons, little spoons.

I'm going to make some deep cross-wise slashes,

and then the chicken is going into the marinade,

where it's gonna hang out maybe for the next 15, 20 minutes.

The onion, I don't want it to get caramelized

and fully softened.

Some water, a teaspoon of Gochugaru,

and then we're gonna do two tablespoons of Gochujang.

So I have my Yukon gold tots.

I am 80%.

There could easily be something else that I need in here

that I just don't have,

but I'm okay, let's bump it to 85.

I'm feeling good and expansive, it's Friday.

Lid it, and quit it. [clanging]

Let's get the chicken in the oven.

Still at 425. [clattering]

Let's do eight minutes. [beeping]

Chiles are going in the skillet, dry.

After my kind of scallion crisis

slash epiphany of yesterday.

Man, this is messing me up.

It tastes so plump and yet cooked.

Scallions tasted cooked.

How the hell did that scallion get cooked?

It may be so obvious that,

Yeah, of course, sections of scallion

were just dropped into the broth.

Or maybe they're just blanched on the side,

like a bright green scallion kind of garnish

that's kinda cooked.

[sighs]

That just seems stupid, but that's kind of maybe

the most appropriate thing to what I tasted.

I don't know, so we're gonna do that.

We're gonna do that, we're going for it.

Let's get some water up for our scallion garnish.

The thing that made me feel like it was a ramp.

You never know, somebody taking a fresh,

local kind of approach to some kind of Korean dish.

Who knows? Somebody's probably doing it somewhere.

What do I know?

Let's get these out of here.

So I kinda want these to start to collapse a little bit.

Guys, come on. [dramatic music]

We didn't put the friggin' Asian pear in there.

[sighs]

Like a goon, I totally forgot to put the pear in there.

I was just staring at that thing like,

It doesn't really seem quite right,

but let's just keep going.

So I gotta get some slices of that in there.

Whatever, for Chaey, hopefully I won't screw it up.

Chicken, I think is done.

I'm gonna drop one scallion in with the Asian pear.

The one that I blanched, the texture seems correct,

but that just seems so stupid and fussy to me.

I can't do it.

This is really good, it's hot.

I pulled out the scallion

just so it wouldn't totally overcook.

Obviously we've got a major difference in the color here,

but this feels more natural and correct.

This I'm gonna scrap.

Let's do this. [smacking]

You can do things with a glove on

that you wouldn't do otherwise.

Let's just say that.

[laughing]

This method feels whack to me.

Having to fish around in a stew for slices of something

that you're then gonna arrange painstakingly,

but you know what?

Somebody else's vision, and I can respect

that they've got a different idea.

Jesus Christ, it's so fussy.

All right, so let's get some potato in there.

Definitely gotta get some onion in there,

chile, and then scallions.

This is pass number two.

I mean, it looks kinda crazy, right?

It doesn't look bad, but it looks kinda crazy.

The chicken has that appropriately,

slightly tough and leathery outside.

I think I'm getting a little too much

ginger flavor in there.

I need all that right back.

That Asian pear really balances the dish nicely,

because you actually get the sweetness in the broth itself.

That is my onion, which is I think an appropriately

sort of flavorless, but there.

I feel really good about switching from ramps to scallions.

I think I was in a really bad place with the ramp thing,

but I'm back.

And then, chile.

Thin-skinned, but with good consistent and persistent heat.

[grunts]

Anyway, yeah, I think I'm pretty good

with what I'm gonna show Christina.

There's not a whole lot I'm gonna be changing here.

Appearance, I'm saying 92%.

These are the elements.

I don't think there's anything else going on there

that I haven't figured oout.

Taste, I'm gonna go 90.

It's the right heat.

It's the right depth.

Technique, 85, I just am not 100% sure about that chicken,

and I'm not sure about the marinade,

and I'm not sure about certain things

with the workflow there.

And ingredients, I'm gonna go back to 90.

I was pretty good about identifying ultimately

what a lot of these things were.

At least, I think I was, so.

Overall grade I think is sort of an 89.

All right, this is my last chance.

I'm fired up to get going.

Just trying to push this along so nobody gets bored.

The Asian pear is something that I felt

pretty good about the entire process.

I mean, honestly, the sun's out.

I'm feeling expansive.

I'm giving myself a 95%.

And I don't do that.

I never wanna be on record for giving myself an A,

because you just look like

that much more of a doofus when you're wrong.

I just wanted a tiny bit of ginger.

There was definitely a little too much this morning.

[clanging]

We're gonna push this along as fast as we can.

[grunts]

[sneezes]

[Cameraman] Bless you.

Friggin' heat, man.

[laughing]

This is kinda what I'm doing.

Soup is done.

Chicken is done.

Garnish is done.

Take it to the plate.

Moments like this, I just keep looking at this thing,

and I'm just like, But is that right?

These are our blistered chiles going on.

This is the dish I'm serve to Christina.

I'm back down to an 85.

The process of doing it this one more time

just sort of made me start to doubt everything.

I can be a B student and be happy.

Literally flying blind with some of these dishes,

so we'll see.

[exhales] Okay, how are you feeling?

I get really nervous in the beginning of these things,

and I get really nervous again at the end.

I'm nervous for you.

I would like to present to you

Maangchi's spicy braised chicken.

Yeah. [laughing]

[Christina] These look really similar.

I'm very impressed. Thanks.

Do you know anything about this dish?

No, I was triangulating kind of like,

Wait, Korean video.

Really specific takes on dishes.

Maangchi came into mind immediately.

It's known by a couple different names.

I think she calls it Dakbokkeumtang.

It's a braised chicken stew, and it's--

So you're telling me this chicken was braised?

Before we get into the specifics,

I'm just gonna taste the original one one more time.

Now I'm gonna compare this to your rendition.

It's interesting, I can already tell that your fruit

is a little bit different.

Is hers firmer?

No, okay. Careful with your shirt.

You're making me real nervous.

For some reason, this one to me tastes

like it was cooked less,

or cooked for a shorter period of time.

The flavors of the Gochujang

are just a lot more in your face.

Yep. Those flavors

mellow out the longer you kind of stew them out.

I'm just going to take a guess

that there were some differences in process.

Sure. It's not necessarily

a braise in the sense that you're sweating out alliums

and all that stuff.

She's not sweating anything out.

It's like everything is going into one pot raw,

so it's raw chicken that's been kind of accordion,

and then tucked with the

apple slices. Pear, tucked, it's apple?

[Christina] You tasted golden delicious apples.

[Christina] Fascinating. So then,

you make a seasoning paste out of the Gochujang

and the Gochugaru, some soy, a couple other things.

And then all of that goes into the pot with the raw chicken,

water, and then that just cooks down.

There's not a single chile or allium element added

until almost the end of the cook.

It's funny when things are that simple.

It's really hard for me to break out of my

kind of own MO for how I would treat ingredients.

Putting a raw allium in something,

if it's not a scallion. Into a pot of.

Is sort of like-- Into a pot

with some cold water.

[laughing] [groaning]

And I couldn't really figure out the chicken

because the way this is kind of dried out,

I put a little bit of soy, rice vin, and a touch of ginger

in the marinade and then just did a roast on it.

So you roasted this?

Yeah, so I put it in the oven.

The texture felt kind of--

I need to tell you what the texture

was actually coming from.

It was actually milk.

[laughing]

She seasons the hassle-backed chicken with salt,

and then she lets it sit in a bowl of milk

for about half an hour.

Her thinking is that it-- Draws out

the impurities or something?

Yes, and actually that's a kind of interesting thing

about the Korean treatment of a lot of proteins.

[Chris] You wash the proteins. Do a

blanch or something?

You rinse it in water.

My parents always rinsed chicken under the sink.

I didn't really think that the apple had been put

in the chicken from the very beginning.

I basically put my pear free-form into the stew,

and then did that as a kind of artificial plating technique.

'Cause that's kinda what it had felt like.

One other thing that I wanted to point out is

that I have never seen this made this way before.

Sugar is the sweetening agent in this dish traditionally.

This is one of those dishes that you make at home

and everyone's grandma has their own way.

My grandma uses bone-in chicken thighs.

You did a pretty good job of gathering together

all of this seasoning.

You sort of nailed it.

Are you able to tell at all that the seasoning elements

for her version were mixed on their own,

and kind of just dumped in as a paste?

No, I mean, I don't think that really matters,

as opposed to just putting ingredients in one by one.

I mean, I don't think that makes any

noticeable difference. I agree.

Putting something directly into a liquid environment,

it's the same [beep] thing.

If you wanna ding me for charring my chiles,

I'll die on the altar for that.

Ingredients, 85, you mostly nailed it.

There we're a couple things.

You went for the pear instead of the apple.

I personally am not going to take it as a dock

that you missed the milk,

because I don't know.

Not even the best super taster I know could figure it out.

Taste, you get a 90. Oh, okay, cool.

I think that your flavors were all there.

For appearance, full marks, 100%.

I feel like we started there.

I was like, Holy shit, these look totally the same.

Technique, I think was the great downfall

[Chris] of this challenge for you. Yeah.

Your technique score is a 64.

You went a little Chris Morocco.

You marinated your chicken, I went at it

a totally different way, yeah. You roasted it.

Which brings your total score,

however though, to a solid 85.

I think you did pretty great.

How happy am I that I didn't keep the ramps in this.

Let's just focus on that for a minute.

Ramp-pocalypse. Oh, yeah,

ramp-pocalypse now. [laughing]

I am extremely delighted at the fact

that you got such a close approximation

to something that I think was not at all the way

that you're used to thinking and cooking every day.

I think you did a great job.

Aw, thank you, all right, bye.

[laughing]

That was tough, but it was fair.

The milk is gonna haunt me now, so.

To know that in the end it was process

and the techniques that really kinda did me in.

That was tough.

Yeah, I mean, look, I didn't make an ass of myself

and at the end of the day, that's kind of what it's about.

For me, anyway.

I think the more that I go through this exercise,

the longer I have that blindfold on,

the better I get at trusting myself.

In just kind of an intuitive, comfortable way

and not beating myself up about what I think

or what I don't think.

[Maangchi] Add milk, just any type of a milk is okay.

When you marinate the chicken with the milk.

[Cameraman] You missed the milk.

Missed the [beep] milk. Missed the milk.

That's a dick move. Oh my God.

That is [beep] rough.

Could we give a caveat? There will be, though?

Could we be like, Milk, who's was your milk?

[Cameraman] All right, fine.