Mar-Apr2016_Final-FlipBook

CHEF DAVID SLATER

T he double-decker “Truffle Fried Chicken for Two” at Emeril’s is the glorious love child of fried chicken and a backyard crawfish boil. Amazingly tender pieces of fried chicken with shatter-crisp crust are gently stacked atop a bed of familiar springtime staples — half a pound of spicy crawfish, yellow corn, fingerling potatoes and andouille chunks — boiled to perfection. The whole glorious mound is drizzled with a fragrant Crystal-fortified butter sauce and topped with wispy-thin pickled pepper slices and a scattering of fresh parsley. “About three years ago, we were looking for a way to serve a great family-style dish,” said David Slater, the Toronto-raised chef de cuisine who runs the flagship of Emeril’s empire. “Something people would share and maybe eat with their hands.” The original version was envisioned as a picnic-style presentation, with sides like cane-syrup baked beans, a nice coleslaw and a generous hunk of cornbread. But then Slater decided to turn the popular dish into an homage to crawfish season — with all the traditional trimmings. “The chicken itself is a 3-day process,” Slater says with a smile. Whole birds are infused with an Italian truffle-scented mushroom paste (“Not enough to overwhelm the chicken flavor”) and marinated with garlic and thyme, then slow-cooked in a gently heated water bath (the sous vide method). The sous vide cooks the chicken to melting tenderness, and the final frying crisps up the skin and crust.The result is a rich, borderline decadent poultry dish cleverly disguised as a Sunday supper staple. Slater also incorporates contrasting flavors into the dish — a splash of pepper juice on top, a little bowl of tangy pepper-jelly sauce on the side for dipping — taken from sweet/sour memories of Cantonese dishes in his native Toronto.The spicy boiled vegetables change with the season, and once the crawfish disappear from the market, it’s back to a more traditional picnic-style presentation. “We sell a lot of these, maybe 20 or 30 a night,” says Slater. “People come in and order the whole thing for themselves, just so they’ll have leftovers for breakfast the next day. We’ll box up what’s left and it fits in a little hotel fridge. Then next morning, when they wake up, they’ve got this cold fried chicken, and that’s a whole different set of flavors.” And when a few boiled crawfish become a spicy breakfast bonus, what could be better than that? “For a riff on chef Slater’s fried chicken, try adding dry seafood boil to your flour. You’ll need about ¼ cup of dry boil for every cup of flour.” —Tommy Rouse, 2 nd Generation Chef David Slater Says Always use good oil. I prefer peanut oil. Start your first batch of fried chicken at 375 degrees — the temperature of the oil will drop when you add the first pieces of chicken. Keep the temperature of the oil between 280 and 325 degrees while you fry. You want the chicken to be cooked all the way through without burning the outside. Keep a clip-on candy/deep-fry thermometer in the pot and you’ll know exactly where you are on temperature.

Emeril’s Funky Stovetop Crawfish Boil You don’t have to do to a big crawfish boil in order every time. You can whip up a quick batch right on your stovetop. Makes 4 Servings WHAT YOU WILL NEED ⅔ cup kosher salt 1 tablespoon black peppercorns 2 (3-ounce) packages dry crab boil 1 cup liquid crab boil 2 bay leaves 3 lemons, halved 1 pound small red bliss potatoes 4 large garlic bulbs, halved horizontally 2 large onions, peeled and quartered 2 large artichokes 5 pounds live crawfish, purged several times in salted water 1 pound andouille sausage links, cut into chunks 2 ears shucked corn, cut into 2-inch pieces 8 ounces button mushrooms HOW TO PREP Fill a large, 5-gallon stockpot with a basket insert with 3 gallons of water. Add the salt, peppercorns, dry and liquid crab boils, and bay leaves. Add the lemons and oranges, squeezing the juice into the stock as they are added. Cover and bring the stock to a boil over high heat; boil for 10 minutes. When the stock is at a full boil, add the potatoes, garlic, onions, and artichokes. Cover and bring stock back to a boil; boil for 10 minutes. Add the live crawfish, sausage, corn, and mushrooms. Cover and bring stock back to a boil; boil for 5 minutes. Turn off the heat and allow the crawfish mixture to sit, covered for 10 to 15 minutes.

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