On Chicken Sandwich with Vodka Sauce

Welcome back to another edition of Cookin' with Kaz, where we take things that are easy to make and explain them to you like you're a fourth grader. The weekend is here, and chances are you'll want to spend part of this time enjoying a delicious sammich. Instead of toasting up whatever salted meats and cheeses still populate your refrigerator, consider this classier alternative.

What You Need:

Chicken breasts or chicken thighs, depending on preference

Spinach

Vodka sauce

Sandwich thins (or rolls of your choice)

Seasoning for chicken (I like Emeril’s Essence for this one – you can buy it or make it yourself, or just use whatever seasoning(s) you prefer)

Olive oil or vegetable cooking spray

Butter

“I’m Feeling A Little Fancy” Brine:

½ gallon warm water

½ cup kosher salt, or about 1/4-2/3 cup sea salt

¼ cup white sugar

¼ cup brown sugar

½ cup soy sauce

2 tablespoons olive oil

Take your chicken of choice and cut them up into appropriately-sized portions for the sandwich rolls you’ve chosen. For the sake of proper cooking and preventing a gigantic mess, the chicken probably should be just about as thick as your hand laying flat.

***If you’re feeling a little fancy, this would be a good time to make the appropriately-named brine above. If you don’t care about the brine, skip down two paragraphs***

Make sure the water is warm at first so it dissolves all the stuff you’re putting into it. I like making the brine in a big ‘ol bowl, but mixing it up in a big Ziploc bag works too if you’re careful/prepare for potential leakage.

Afterwards, toss your chicken in the brine, cover the bowl/zip up the bag, and put it in your fridge for anywhere between three and 12 hours, depending on how much chicken you’ve put in there. (Obviously, if you’re making a ton of chicken, you’ll want to bump up the amount of brine you’re making) Don’t leave the chicken brining for more than a day or so, or your chicken will start to becoming really stiff from the salt and sugar. Remove from the brine once you’re ready to make sammiches and dump the brine.

Once your chicken is cut up and/or done brining, season it how you prefer. If you want to use a hammer or mallet beat your chickens into submission and make sure they’re uniform or whatever, go for it.

Now, it's time to start cooking. I use a George Foreman grill to cook the chicken for about 10-12 mintues, but you can bake it in the oven, sauté it with some veggies and olive oil in a saucepan, or deep fry it in bacon grease if you prefer. The world is your oyster, er, chicken.

While the chicken is cooking, take a few tablespoons of vodka sauce and start it on medium low/low heat in a small saucepan. I would skew low for the exact amount of sauce; you only need about 1-2 tablespoons per sandwich, or it’ll get sloppy in a hurry. Also, don’t be an idiot like me and put the heat up too high on the creamy vodka sauce, or it’ll be all gross and curdled and stuff. If you want to avoid all the touchiness, you can also just use Ragu or some homemade pasta sauce you like – I just like vodka sauce because it adds a certain fanciness to a meal that is essentially a grilled chicken sandwich.

Now, get a saucepan out and heat up a tablespoon or two of olive oil over medium-low heat, or spray the pan with cooking spray. Once it’s been heating for a minute or two, take a fistful of spinach per sandwich and throw it on the pan, stirring it up occasionally. If you like putting garlic or onions with your spinach sauté, go for it, but I find there’s usually enough flavor going on in the sandwich already to where adding more with the spinach isn’t necessary.

Lastly, if you want to toast your sammich buns, you can start that now. Once it’s sufficiently warm, butter them up and let it melt into the buns. If you don’t care about toasting it, you can butter the plain bun and just kind of let it sit there for a bit. (This can also work well as a sub/hoagie if you prefer)

The spinach should cook quickly, and the vodka sauce won’t take long to get warm (without burning it!). Once the chicken is done, place it on the sammich, drizzle the vodka sauce over it, and put the spinach on top. Eat it with chips or whatever and class up your weekend sammich.

On Cooking the Best Damn Fried Chicken Ever (with Bacon)

Welcome to Cooking with Kaz, a periodic update on what in God's good name Kaz is doing in the kitchen. Some of the posts and recipes here will be great, some will be terrible, some will be plagiarized wholesale from other websites for the sake of garnering clicks on this one. But today's recipe, which came about as a sort of spare-parts creation last night, can only be described in one word: opulent. Eat your racist heart out, Paula Deen.

Kaz's Bacon-Fried Chicken Bites

Ingredients:

Boneless skinless chicken breast! (use whichever kind of chicken you like; I’ve found that when it comes to wings, breast is best)

Buttermilk

Kosher salt

Black pepper

Flour

McCormick’s Montreal Chicken seasoning (or your seasoning(s) of choice – salt, pepper and paprika also work)

Eggs

Bacon

Hot sauce (your preference here. I use Sriracha if I’m feeling frisky, and I’m also partial to Dexter Holland’s Gringo Bandito sauce. But you can’t go wrong with straight-up Frank’s Red Hot, either)

Butter (I prefer unsalted)

White vinegar

Worcestershire sauce

Cayenne pepper

Garlic powder

Regular salt

Tools you’ll use:

Freezer bag, Tupperware container, pot, or whatever can hold a quart of buttermilk plus some chicken

A colander

One small bowl for grease

Two bowls or shallow dishes for breading

A frying pan for…well…frying

A drying rack and a cookie sheet/oven pan to place underneath it

Two forks

A fine sieve

Tongs or something else to grab/flip delicious hunks of chicken

A pot or saucepan for the buffalo sauce

Take your chicken and chop it into pieces. If you want to make them bite-sized, make the “OK” symbol with your hand for reference; the chicken pieces should be no wider than that.

Pour a quart of buttermilk into a bag, Tupperware container, etc. Add a few tablespoons of kosher salt, and about a quarter-as-much of pepper. Add your chicken and leave overnight, or for as long as you can if you’re in a time crunch.

The next day (or whenever)…

If you’re not a crazy person like me who just has bacon grease stored for such an occasion, you’ll need to produce some. Take a few slices of bacon and fry them on each side until well done. (Six slices of bacon usually renders enough grease in the average pan to cook one pan full of chicken) Remove the bacon from the pan and…I mean, eat it, I guess.

 Once the grease has cooled slightly but before it’s begun to solidify, pour it off the pan into a bowl through a fine sieve. If you feel you need more grease, cook some more bacon, man. Put the grease in a new pan, or return it to the pan you were just using if you prefer, and put it over medium-low heat

 Mix together a cup or two of flour and a few tablespoons of Montreal chicken/whatever seasoning in a bowl or shallow dish. Take a few eggs and scramble them in a bowl. Add about a quarter-cup of milk to the eggs – if you still have some buttermilk left, use that; if not, regular milk will do (the closer to whole milk, the better).

Drain the chicken-brine mix in a colander. Take the drained chicken pieces and roll them around in the flour/seasoning mixture. Once they’re all completely coated, put them in the egg/milk mixture. Once the pieces are coated in egg, take each one out and allow the excess to drip off of them before putting them back in the flour mixture. (This part is a pain in the ass. It’s well worth it, though, to avoid gloppy pieces of chicken. You can also use a slotted spoon to grab a few at a time, but I would still take the pieces out of that and allow the excess egg to drip off from there)

Roll the chicken pieces in the flour mixture a second time. When completely coated, turn the pan of bacon grease up to medium. Give it about a minute to heat up, continuing to roll the chicken around until then. Once the grease is hot enough, put your chicken pieces in the pan to fry. Fry on each side for about five minutes, or until the chicken is evenly golden on both sides. Once cooked, place the drying rack on top of a cookie sheet and place the chicken on top of the drying rack.

***Now, if you’re not interested in buffalo wings, you’re done at this point. Let the chicken dry for a minute, and then serve with ranch, barbecue sauce, honey mustard or whatever you like. Good work, champ – these taste great without the spicy stuff. However, if you are interested in saucing up, I’d recommend putting the chicken and drying rack/cookie sheet in the oven at about 200 degrees F to keep warm. Then…

Combine a cup of hot sauce, a stick of butter, four tablespoons of vinegar, and varying teaspoon-ish amounts of Worcestershire sauce, garlic powder and cayenne pepper into a pot or saucepan. Add a shake or two of salt and put it on medium heat. Stir occasionally and lower to low heat once the butter has fully melted into the mix. Take your chicken out of the oven and dump them in the pot/pan of sauce, rolling them around until coated. Remove the chicken from the sauce and place back on the drying rack/sheet to allow the excess sauce to drain off. Serve with ranch, bleu cheese, celery and carrots, and feast, my friend.