Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
It shouldn’t exist. When you put it in your mouth your palate is all “WTF?!” More than half of the people that tasted it laughed out loud just after they wiped the confused look off their faces. But much like that hamburger you once ate that used doughnuts instead of buns, sometimes things that defy reason just work; and should be embraced like all other forms of gluttony.
Full disclosure: this is not an original idea, nor is it an original recipe. Faithful Readers know I don’t have an original bone in my body. I once Googled “fried chicken ice cream” because that’s what guys like me do. What I turned up was this recipe based on a treat from the prolific Coolhaus. As I read through it I became very excited, agitated to the point of fidgeting in fact, because I saw a huge potential to improve upon the idea that they had spearheaded. What they do is create an intense fried chicken caramel, which has a ton of disgustingly good applications on its own, and ripple it into a maple brown butter ice cream. Solid. Super solid idea, none could argue. However, is this as “chicken-y” as can be? I mean if everything tastes like chicken, this needed to Chicken Punch me in the face. Why isn’t the dairy infused in this recipe? It seems like such a huge missed opportunity. Roasted chicken bones will flavor milk or cream just as well as water will when making stock, so why stop at the fried chicken caramel to drive that flavor home; I thought. Because…subtlety? Well there’s your problem right there!
Anyway, enough about that recipe, let’s talk about how I do it. First of all, one of the great joys of making this recipe for tentop was I found out a ten pound case of chicken skin is a thing that I can buy for $15. I never thought I’d be grateful for the huge demand for “boneless, skinless” anything, but here I am; a beneficiary of bi-product. At this juncture I’ll point out another flaw in the original recipe, especially when you double and triple this recipe as any self respecting, Hot-Blooded American will be wont to do. Chicken skin has a shit ton of fat in it, way more than the the amount of egg yolk in this recipe can emulsify into a smooth ice cream base. So if you are closely comparing the two recipes as I imagine all three of you that are reading will be, take note of step 2 in the custard method below. Another glaring misstep in my humble opinion is the inclusion of cornstarch in the OG recipe. Is it here to mitigate the excess of fat? Especially since the brown butter is left in it’s entirety in the recipe? Perhaps, but…well shit man be proactive, not reactive to ingredients’ behaviors. So I did the brown butter infusion as I would have for Brown Butter Ice Cream, but I also fried up some more of the chicken skin in that butter before proceeding with the Brown Milk process, which was created by Chef Sam Mason. The excess fat is discarded, so the custard base is my own basic recipe I’ve used for years, which requires no corn starch to work. We used this ice cream as a component of a dish at Supfast 2.
Fried Chicken Ice Cream
For the caramel:
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
2 cups heavy cream
1/4 lb chicken leg and thigh bones, roasted hard
For the fried chicken sauce:
¼ pound fresh chicken skins, roughly chopped
2 cups rich chicken stock
½ tbsp kosher salt
1 tsp coarse ground black pepper
1 tsp dried sage (or 2-3 leaves of fresh sage, chopped fine)
¼ tsp cayenne pepper
1. Place the chicken leg and thigh bones into a pot and cover with the cream. Bring this to a boil, cover, kill the heat and let steep 30 minutes. Strain of cream and add more cream if you need to to get 2 cups. Some of the cream will be soaked into the bones. Set aside infused cream
2. Place the sugar into a sauce pot with enough water to make a wet sand consistency. Caramelize the sugar to a rich amber, I look for the color of an old penny. Whisk in the chicken infused cream, return to a boil, then strain through a fine mesh sieve. Set aside the caramel.
3. Make the fried chicken sauce: Render the chopped chicken skins of their fat and cook them do a deep, fried chicken color. Pour off 95% of the rendered fat before adding the stock and remaining seasoning ingredients. Let this step simmer 20 minutes over low heat.
4. Whisk in the chicken caramel and bring to a boil. Pour the Fried Chicken Caramel into a storage vessel and let cool to room temp before covering and chilling overnight to develop flavors. Next day strain and save for use in the ice cream base, or to impress your friends.
For the Custard Base:
1 cup heavy cream
Clik here to view.
