#002 Danny Pirello: Rethinking the chicken burger

Books and articles discussed in the show

Transcript

Danny Pirello I will take this piece of chicken put it these tinfoil over and I'll just kind of crush it down a little bit - it'll break all the sinew inside of this this chicken thigh and it'll just make it so that when you bite into it you can get a clean, succinct bite.

Ollie Horn Hello and welcome to My Signature Dish. My name is Ollie Horn and it's great to have you here. This is the podcast where I interview incredible home cooks, find out what their story is, where they get their inspiration from and discuss their signature dish. If you're new to the podcast then thank you very much for checking us out. If you're back here after listening to Matthew's episode last week and have come back for more then you're not going to be disappointed with this conversation. Danny goes into a crazy amount of detail about his fried chicken sandwich. You won't believe how many hours a prep goes into just one of these things. He also shares a two-ingredient sandwich sauce that I've already used at a party as a dipping sauce to phenomenal feedback - really really great stuff in this episode. Danny's background isn't actually in the kitchen but behind the bar. The first time I met him was when he invited me around to his friend's bar where he was leading a cocktail class and observing him making cocktails was fascinating. He's hugely adventurous and experimental, has lots of fun, but he's an absolute slave to technique and tradition, and this is a dichotomy that we also find in his food. This conversation starts with me asking Danny about his earliest memory of cooking. Enjoy!

Danny Pirello I must have been... I must have been in elementary school. I'm sure I'd cooked things before this but we went to costco and bought a bunch of... they were like some sort of Chinese sausage. You know they're bright red kind of spicy sausage. I don't know specifically what it was but we made this... we bought a whole bunch of shrimp and I made fried rice in a wok with like you know a bunch of veg; this spicy sausage; and this shrimp and I remember watching the shrimp hit the pan and watching it go watching it... iy was raw shrimp and watching it turn bright pink and I was just so enamored by that I thought it was so cool.

Ollie Horn Right. It turns from looking like fish to looking like food instantly.

Danny Pirello Instantly. Yeah. And then just that all the flavors that were going into it and the aromas and I was just like oh we're creating we're creating this experience right now.

Ollie Horn And do you remember roughly how old you would have been then?

Danny Pirello I must have been 12 years old.

Ollie Horn And at 12 years old did you know the techniques for fried rice? Were you using you know dried rice from the day before?

Danny Pirello I don't know what I don't know what I was doing but it's like that that you know that just the improvisation and the intuition you know it's it's something that was it was a part of my my life like cooking with my my family. It was just it was just so intuitive. Always with not just with that dish but whatever was being cooked. Now that doesn't always translate to like everything being good like there was a lot of failures in there of course but it's always been that kind of like creative intuitive experience.

Ollie Horn Well let's talk a bit about that because your introduction to cooking was one of impulse an improvisation. And you grew up to be a creative right. You do music you you know work mixing spirits professionally. Tell us about that journey.

Danny Pirello From from cooking to how it expanded into the rest of my life. I mean it's it's so it's so connected that all of the years of cooking, balancing flavors. I mean for bartending it's directly connected to making cocktails. Just very very simplified down in some ways. I mean people dig really into it. I try to keep it really simple but it's that idea of like finding the balance between you know in terms of cocktails the citrus, sweet, and your spirit like taking the different components and in finding that perfect medium.

Ollie Horn So for someone that doesn't understand cocktails, and I'll confess I've never really given much thought to the composition of cocktails. What is it that goes into a good cocktail? What's the kind of standard base ratio of ingredients that forms the cocktails that we have?

Danny Pirello Well again I like to keep it super simple. I and especially now that I'm I'm really working with spirits in a real way. I love the idea of taking a classic recipe that has three components. Let's say a gimlet for example. Base spirit maybe it's gin, citrus, sweet putting them together getting it ripping cold and serving in ice cold coup. Now let's take that that gin. Let's find some really interesting gin that has a really beautiful backstory like maybe it comes from Argentina and maybe the botanical build is is eucalyptus or something that's really abstract and it has a totally unique flavor profile. And then let's let's complement that with some sort of compound simple syrup that has you know maybe we'll make a simple syrup with with basil herbs or Thai basil or something like that and fresh squeezed lime juice and just get the proportions right for the sweetness of the the gin and you know. The balance you know you should be able to find it pretty easily and it'll make that that really interesting gin just become elevated and sing.

Ollie Horn So you've been bartending professionally what for over a decade right.

Danny Pirello 15 years now.

Ollie Horn And so you must you must have had customers which don't know what they like. Right. Or at least articulate that I don't know what like. But through a conversation you work out what's going to please them.

Danny Pirello It's super common. It's it's one of the most common interactions is they... I kind of like I push for this kind of interaction. It's my favorite dining experience. My favorite thing is to go into a restaurant and for the server to come up to me and to take the menu out of my hand and be like I'm your menu tonight. You don't need a menu. Great. I'm going to tell you I'm going to tell you what you want. I know this place, you don't know this place. I'm going to take one look at you, and I'm gonna send some stuff out. I'm like bring it on, that exactly what I want. I love that experience.

Ollie Horn I'm so with you. It really bothers me when I go to a restaurant. The thing I'll always say is just tell me what's good. And it really bothers me when a server's like "oh well you know there's pizza and there's this" I don't care what there is. Tell me what's good! What would you regret me leaving this restaurant having not tried?

Danny Pirello It's super rare to have that server that's super passionate about the place that they work and the food that's being served there. They're out there. But when you find that one and they're just they're just like all right I'm going to I'm going to take the reins here.

Ollie Horn So. Let's return to these three staples right: the spirit, the citrus (or the acid), and the sweet - these three combinations. Are you trying to read someone and go, "I think they're going to like these kind of ratios..." or?

Danny Pirello Well my first my first thing is do you want to. Do you want a citrus forward refreshing shaken cocktail or do you want to spirit forward stirred cocktail Negroni Manhattan Sazerac something like that. So I'll just ask these a couple quick questions as to get a read off them. You know the question of like do you have an aversion to any particular spirits. A lot of times I like to break through that barrier because if someone's like oh man I hate rum I drink a Gatorade bottle full of Bacardi when I was in college and I just I can't drink rum and I just can't bring rum it's like well you know that that experience notwithstanding there is a wild world of amazing rums out there that are so different so interesting they're like oh I don't like rum but I love bourbon like I'll give you 10 rums that drink like a bourbon that are you know like or whatever like that. So I try to break through those barriers whenever possible. But you know someone'll give you the spirits that they don't like and you can you know you can pretty easily eliminate those. They'll tell you they want something that's refreshing and seriously see it's like OK we're gonna go in the the shaken you know maybe it's a gimlet daiquiri variation something in there or if they're like I want something sweet and I like rum like OK cool let's make a tiki drink or you know if they if they like Negroni is then you could just you can improvise for days on that one. So there's all kinds of variations.

Ollie Horn So what does someone who's listening to this that still hasn't worked out what their cocktail is, that still is opening up a cocktail menu going "well here we go, it's this again." What should be their thought process?

Danny Pirello I mean for me when I look at a cocktail list and usually I'll just usually I'll just look at the back barn if there's an interesting spirit I'll order a classic with that spirit because that's that's more what I'm into. But a lot of people like to look at the original cocktails on the cocktail list and and pick one that is interesting to them. I like to you know again go spirit driven like Cece if it's a really cool cocktail bar. Let's see what they're doing with this Mescal that everybody else is using in there well you know.

Ollie Horn And I have a question from a personal perspective: why is it whenever I'm on a date in a cocktail bar no matter what drink I order I always get the more effeminate-looking glass than my date.

Danny Pirello Yeah it's tough to look out for though and you can't really tell what it's going to be from the menu. No. It's almost impossible. I guess that's just the luck of the draw for you. Yeah.

Ollie Horn Is there no secret sign to put it in a pint glass? And so you're obviously you know super passionate about cocktails before we started recording you were waxing lyrical about spirits and how you're looking to develop your own spirit. Tell me: what's the end game for you when you're putting all this work into creating stuff. What are you really doing it for?

Danny Pirello Well so the end game for me personally is I want to open an oyster bar with a cocktail menu. I live in this town called Scituate. It's the south of Boston it's right on the ocean and it looks across if - you're familiar with like Cape Cod. It looks across the the bay to Pete Town you can see the Pete Town tower on the horizon there and this whole area is just like so rich with oysters. And I want to open a seasonal oyster bar in in one of those little towns there with a cocktail bar that's just open in the summer. That's something that I've wanted to do for a really long time but I'm taking my time to get there because I want to be completely prepared for it. And I want to have you know I've been on this this journey this like this culinary journey for so long and I haven't reached a destination yet. And so I don't want to I don't want to settle down and start serving this food to people until I have I feel like I've accomplished more and learned a lot more. And so that's what I'm doing right now.

Ollie Horn And people are coming to your oyster bar they're there for your story, right.

Danny Pirello Exactly.

Ollie Horn What what's gone into shape the story. So what parts of the story are not yet written?

Danny Pirello So that you know the beginning of a story - obviously what we talked about is very much my family. You know we cook. That's what we do. And so I've always cooked because of that. But really where it started to get interesting is I when I moved out here to California about 10 years ago for the first time. And. Immediately I was living in Berkeley and there's a supermarket there called Monterrey Market and I walked into this supermarket and just immediately had my mind blown by the unbelievable ingredients there. There's an aisle full of mushrooms foraged from all over northern California. I've never seen anything like that. The produce was incredible these ingredients were so fresh. I'm used to walking into a supermarket in in the Boston area and really like you know eight months out of the year you're getting stuff that comes from California and the freshness is usually suspect and you're cooking with that stuff. And so now I'm going to these this amazing this amazing grocery store to buy my produce. I'm working in this French restaurant that has a butcher shop that's getting these cuts of meat that I'm like, I'm like good friends with the butcher and they're like I'm watching them break down you know break down a pig and break down like a side of a cow. And I'm like I'm like learning about these cuts and I'm taking them home and I'm cooking with them. And the difference is it's massive so I got ice. I you know 10 years ago I got into the I realized the significance of the quality of the ingredients and and that that that kind of drove my my culinary journey is this next step where I'm seeking that out. So you know fast forward five or so years I was I moved back to Boston and I went to Europe with my mom and my sister and we flew to Barcelona. We stayed there for a couple days and we rented a car we drove up through the Pyrenees mountains and we stopped in this tiny little town in the south of France in the Pyrenees mountains to stay at this this little AirBnB that was this house that was hundreds of years old. And we went to this little butcher shop. I just I was like super romantic about the idea of going into this little town and go to the butcher shop going to a little grocery store going to the bakery to get some but you know the the classic French thing. So we went to this butcher shop in this little town and I bought it was first of all everything in that butcher shop was you could see the difference. It's the cuts of meat are so beautiful they're so rich and they're coming from these farms like down the street that have had this pedigree of quality that goes back hundreds of years like this butcher shop has probably been there for hundreds of years in some capacity whether it's in the same location like in all of this. These cuts of meat are coming from families that have been producing these cuts of meat for generations. And so there's this pedigree of quality there. And I remember I bought these little lamb chops. And we brought them back to this super old house and we cooked in the backyard. It was this it was this apple orchard and I cooked them over these coals and like super super low. It was this really weird grill that they had we had a couple coals and just cook them on really hot heat just with salt and pepper and it was that was one of the most amazing things I've ever eaten these lamb chops because you could just tell that you're tasting that that tradition you know so that that really impacted me. And it kind of changed the way that I cooked and the way that I thought about ingredients when I came back to the states. I was like where can I find this it's so much harder if mean you're not going to find that you're not going to find that tradition in the same way. But you know you should you're sure not going to find that at Stop 'n' Shop or whatever supermarket you go to.

Ollie Horn Yeah it's interesting isn't it. The lower the quality of the meat the more work you have to do to it. I remember when I was in Nigeria I had this absolutely incredible goat. They basically had this this kind of open barbecue on the street. And what was distinctive what it was it was completely covered in seasoning right. You couldn't even see the meat underneath this very thick rich layer of kind of red pepper I guess. And I guess it's because you know the when you can see the goats out there right there they're not particularly fatty that you know that they're not particularly well nourished. And so I guess the you know the way that they cooking this meat is super inventive right to try and you know create tenderness and create flavor. It's interesting that when you're working with ingredients that are just so good. Yeah. So they need almost nothing nothing to them.

Danny Pirello Yeah. And you can do you can. You can get it a mediocre cut and do so much different stuff too it but it's never gonna be as good as that.

Ollie Horn Mm hmm.

Danny Pirello You know that wherever you find it that like really special cut of meat and there's something to be said and you know so, I guess this was this was before I moved to California but I had another formative experience living in Maine southern Maine which is just in New England. I was living right on the coast in the fall I was painting after I was living in New York and I I was just I living there. I was painting I was I was doing portraits of people's houses and I was also painting the house that I was living in and I was fishing a lot.

Ollie Horn By doing portraits... you mean you would?

Danny Pirello I would paint people's yeah like I don't know. Like Edward Hopper style.

Ollie Horn Yeah.

Danny Pirello Like paintings of houses.

Ollie Horn And you would also.

Danny Pirello And also I was...

Ollie Horn Simultaneously painting the exterior of the house. Were you painting the exterior first. You didn't have to then modify your painting after you painted it?

Danny Pirello Right. Exactly! Yeah. So I. Well I was painting when I finished the house that I was working on then I did paintings of that house.

Ollie Horn Like a bit of an upsell - a bit of a bonus.

Danny Pirello Yeah.

Ollie Horn"Would you like a record of the work?".

Danny Pirello Exactly. So I was I was fishing a lot in southern Maine and I and I had fished a little bit in my life before that but I had never you know really like went through the process of catching a fish and breaking it down myself. And I caught my first bluefish on my own out there and I don't know if you know much about you know how aggressive a blue fish is. They've razor sharp teeth and they do not want you to take them out of the ocean.

Ollie Horn They don't want to be caught!

Danny Pirello They don't want to be caught. So I had this experience of catching this blue fish and bringing it back to my house which is like right near the ocean and you know dispatching it without really knowing I had never killed I don't think I'd ever really killed anything at that point you know and I when I and I caught it with the intent on cooking it. And so I was looking this fish in the eye as I dispatched it. And that moment really stuck with me and I don't I didn't do a necessarily a very good job of it because I didn't really have the knowledge I was in my early 20s and I you know I hadn't done my research and I I kind of got ahead of myself a little bit.

Ollie Horn Did you have some instinct?

Danny Pirello I had some instincts but man I didn't have the right tools - the knife I had wasn't sharp enough and I had it on a boogie board just like in my driveway and the neighbors were all looking at me they're like "What is this guy doing right now?".

Ollie Horn"There's a very weird satanic ritual. What cult has he entered?"

Danny Pirello It was not it wasn't pretty and this fish was just looking at me like "dude you really botched the job on this one."

Ollie Horn The fish is looking at you going "shame on you!""

Danny Pirello But this stuck with me and it's like anything that you're cooking with this is something that you know it gave its life for this moment really which is really sad you know and obviously but you better honor that and you better you know do you do your damnedest to make sure whatever you're cooking you should be thoughtful about it.

Ollie Horn I think you're right. I think if there's a moral case for eating meat which I myself do struggle with while also eating as much meat as I can eat I think is that right. I think it's going to be super respectful of the the animal making sure that none of it's wasted. Yeah and making sure that we you know we do our best to honor its life by making as delicious as possible.

Danny Pirello Right.

Ollie Horn Because maybe if it knew right maybe if maybe if the cow knew eventually it was going to end.

Danny Pirello I mean if you knew that you were eventually going to be a delicious delicious meal.

Ollie Horn Yeah. I mean maybe I would say you know maybe I'd go "Oh do I need to work out or you know what. What do you need from me?".

Danny Pirello Yeah.

Ollie Horn Maybe if that's what maybe if that is my life purpose that one day I'm going to be slaughtered and cooked. Maybe that's exciting maybe I can work towards that and be the best I can be at it. So you more of a meat guy or a fish guy?

Danny Pirello I mean I I probably eat. I try to eat more fish but I cook more meat right now just because I have more access to it.

Ollie Horn There's a big barbecuing culture in this part of the world isn't there.

Danny Pirello Yeah for sure. I mean over this past summer I was living right around the beach and in Scituate and I, I was fishing a lot and so I was eating more. I was making a lot of credo and I was eating eating a lot of fish. But right now I just I've been on this on this chicken thing man and that's that's really taken over.

Ollie Horn So how how have the chickens taken over. Like Chicken Run?

Danny Pirello Yeah exactly so I am. I kind of stumbled. I've been you know I've been cooking fried chicken in in different capacities for my whole life because just because it's one of my favorite things to eat and so.

Ollie Horn Absolutely with you on that.

Danny Pirello Yeah. And so it's been this it's been this evolving process which started with you know we get into the specifics of the technique but it started with the like Italian-style like chicken parmesan you know.

Ollie Horn Right. So I've never had this in Italy but I've had this in Australia. You know this they're absolutely mad for chicken parma in Australia. Literally the first day I was there, I went into a pub and all the people there were just waxing lyrical about this dish that we had not had a chicken parm in your life? They were excited about this moment.

Danny Pirello It's exciting!

Ollie Horn Well I. Don't think it's necessarily a particularly culinary breakthrough the way they do it. But for those who haven't had it it's basically breaded chicken right. So it's chicken in breadcrumbs which I imagine they cook by doing a kind of a standard flour egg then breadcrumb and then they put a tomato sauce on top and then cheese and then that's melted. And then what they seem to do in Australia is add gravy which I like to think is a little British influence.

Danny Pirello Yeah sounds like it.

Ollie Horn And it's not bad they serve it with chips which seems a bit much. It's not bad but I imagine I imagine if I had one in Italy be nicer but maybe they don't do them in Rome I've only been to Rome.

Danny Pirello I don't know if they do.

Danny Pirello I mean as far as I know it's like an American Italian.

Ollie Horn Oh yeah. Possibly.

Danny Pirello You know. So it's like it's the Italian sub shops in the Boston suburbs where you going to get a chicken parm sub. Right. And that is that's just like one of my favorite things in the world is like super nostalgic.

Ollie Horn The thing that I find a bit odd about the chicken parm is for me one of the appeals of fried chicken is you have a lovely crispy skin right. Which is then undermined by adding sauce on top.

Danny Pirello Yep.

Ollie Horn Isn't it. Well I think one of the most exciting fried chickens is Korean fried chicken because they managed - I don't know how they do it - but they managed to create a crispy skin then cover it in sauce. But the chicken stays crisp.

Danny Pirello Yeah.

Ollie Horn I don't really see a cutlet when I think of fried chicken I don't think of chicken cutlets. Yeah. All right. There's more to fried chicken that isn't there.

Danny Pirello Absolutely. But but in the context of a sandwich cutlet you know.

Ollie Horn It's the right shape.

Danny Pirello It's the right shape for that so that you know going from the chicken parm eventually schnitzel came into my world.

Ollie Horn Right.

Danny Pirello And so I started making schnitzel with pork and chicken but.

Ollie Horn Which is a very similar process.

Danny Pirello Yes it's super similar, for me it was exactly the same it's just when I look.

Ollie Horn Maybe it's just the same dish with a different name.

Danny Pirello Yeah. No I mean basically with just different different fixings. But um but the process of taking a pork tenderloin and hammering it out to be the size of a dinner plate.

Ollie Horn Yep.

Danny Pirello Super thin.

Ollie Horn Yep.

Danny Pirello I was so cool and exciting and it's like OK now this this you've made it super thin and we're frying it one at a time. It's taking up the whole frying pan and then there's so much cool stuff you can do with that. So that was really exciting stuff. For a long time that was my my world of fried chicken was that process of...

Ollie Horn So far you're only frying chicken breasts that you're turning into cutlets.

Danny Pirello Pretty early on I started using thighs.

Ollie Horn Good on ya.

Danny Pirello Pretty early on and I was using boneless skinless thighs just because they were so easy to get.

Ollie Horn Yeah.

Danny Pirello But I know that the fat content and like it just for me and I love all the the little nasty bits on a chicken thigh when you pounded out to make schnitzel when you deep fry that I think it just if you do that with the breast it just it seems that it falls a little flat for me personally.

Ollie Horn It's very one dimensional cut of meat. It's funny how the chicken breast is held in such high regard in this country. Same in the UK. I don't understand it. Whereas chicken thighs are cheaper cut. Wheras you go to Southeast Asia - the opposite is true. They think the breast is a complete waste of time.

Danny Pirello Right.

Ollie Horn It's cheaper to buy a chicken breast than it is to buy a chicken thigh which is very prized cut, because it is more delicious. I wonder whether we're in Signature Dish territory? You seem to be it your eyes are lighting up whenever you're talking this chicken.

Danny Pirello I'm ready.

Ollie Horn So tell me what your signature dish is.

Danny Pirello So, alright. My signature dish it turns out is a fried chicken sandwich. The origin story we've already kind of covered through their chicken parm into schnitzel and then somewhat recently within the last two years I got into you know I was working in this restaurant in Boston and they did like a Nashville Hot fried chicken.

Ollie Horn You're gonna have to tell me what that is.

Danny Pirello Nashville Hot fried chicken. Is this Nashville tradition of fried chicken where it's super spicy it's a lard based hot sauce so they're doing like a traditional Southern fried chicken and then they're tossing it in in this. Lard bass super super spicy hot sauce and it's like they serve it on a piece of white bread you know like Texas toast with some pickles and it's covered in this incendiary hot sauce.

Ollie Horn So this hot sauce is like a like a buffalo wing sauce?

Danny Pirello It's more of it's it's thick.

Ollie Horn Yeah.

Danny Pirello And it's fatty and it's deep like it's a deeper red color and it is it's really intense intensely hot and spicy.

Ollie Horn And what kind of chicken are we talking about here?

Danny Pirello Leg breast and thigh.

Ollie Horn And it's like battered like Southern fried chicken?

Danny Pirello Yeah. So they do they do it. They were doing it. They were doing the technique at State Park and this is you know the fried chicken State Park for my money and some of the best fried chicken in the world. State Park in Kendall Square outside of Boston and they cook the chicken in a C-vap so it maintains a lot of the moisture.

Ollie Horn What's this?

Danny Pirello A C-vap is, um. I don't I don't know the full name of a C-vap or what C-vap is short for, but it basically it's not dissimilar from steaming but it's a way to get the the the use moisture to cook the chicken. Not everybody has this it's really hard to come by.

Ollie Horn Is it like a deep fat fryer that also steams it?

Danny Pirello I would imagine that it's it's not dissimilar from that.

Ollie Horn Yeah.

Danny Pirello I don't know a ton about these air fryers but I feel like an air fryer and a C-vat are probably similar pieces of equipment because.

Ollie Horn I guess when you're in a commercial kitchen you've got loads of loads of options to cook right. But when you're fried chicken at home I guess you're using what a standard pan.

Danny Pirello Right. Or you know whatever.

Ollie Horn Or a deep fryer?

Danny Pirello So what they're doing is it's fully cooked in the C-vap and then they're dredging it and frying it and they do a double fry.

Ollie Horn Right. So it's like it's kind of the chickens almost been blanched before it's being fried?

Danny Pirello Exactly so that in the frying process you don't have to worry about cooking and you're just worrying about getting the perfect.

Ollie Horn Skin!

Danny Pirello Skin.

Ollie Horn Yeah that's interesting.

Danny Pirello I saw them making this fried chicken. I worked with it for many years and somewhat recently I have really deep dived into into this fried chicken sandwich recipe. I was using so many different things and I got David Chang's cookbook. And I went to his restaurant with a bunch of friends and I had this amazing experience eating his fried chicken. It was unbelievable.

Ollie Horn What was good about it?

Danny Pirello That we did the two whole chickens the Southern style and the Korean style. It was the format. I mean the chicken was cooked perfectly - everything. It hit all the points. It was it was moist.

Ollie Horn When you say a whole chicken the chicken wasn't cooked all in one?

Danny Pirello No. It was cut into pieces. We had two piles of chicken and two different styles but it's served with... he serves it in this really cool Korean style lettuce wraps and like all the.

Ollie Horn Ah amazing.

Danny Pirello And gojudong and like this scallion ginger sauce and for me like I had this moment of eating that pulling apart a chicken thigh and putting it into a fried chicken thigh and putting it into this lettuce wrap.

Ollie Horn A bit of a chili sauce.

Danny Pirello With a chili sauce and it was just it was perfect it was I was incredible. And so I started you know and I love Craig. I love the Japanese style of fried chicken.

Ollie Horn Which is famously has no sauce on it.

Danny Pirello Right. Exactly.

Ollie Horn Have you ever had chicken Nanban?

Danny Pirello No what's that?

Ollie Horn Chicken Nandan is another Japanese fried chicken dish which seems to be less known which does have sauce on it. So what they do is they do use chicken thigh, normally. They bread it in a slightly different way to karaage. So it's it's got like a more kind of consistent coating on the outside right. So it's not. It looks a bit more like a batter and it's a little lighter. And then on top of that they'll put like a mayonnaise and egg mixture.

Danny Pirello Oh cool.

Ollie Horn Like a boiled egg kind of chopped up with mayonnaise and a couple of different spices.

Danny Pirello Where does this come from?

Ollie Horn Well that's a good question. So nanban? What does nan.... Well I imagine that's a Chinese origin.

Danny Pirello Yeah.

Ollie Horn That's a good question. You caught me out there. Certainly the name would suggest that it's it's been imported. But it seems to be the only time that the Japanese cooking tradition they're happy to put sauce. Yeah. On fried chicken and it is absolutely delicious.

Danny Pirello So one of the techniques that I was drawing from is this this recipe that that he has in his book David Chang has in his book that's. It's fried chicken. They breakdown. Well first of all he gets an amazing chicken which is crucial to this whole thing.

Ollie Horn Do you think the quality of the chicken matters with fried chicken?

Danny Pirello I absolutely do.

Ollie Horn And so fresh not frozen?

Danny Pirello Absolutely. Yeah. And he gets this amazing chicken. I haven't actually I don't I don't know what I think I don't know where you can get this in California but it's I can only imagine it's the chicken that we had at his restaurant which was incredible. And so then he breaks it apart. He brines it in salt sugar brine for somewhere between two and six hours then he steams it for 45 minutes and then he lets it sit in the fridge for at least two hours. It kind of like congeals and comes together and after 45 minutes at a medium heat steaming it's completely cooked.

Ollie Horn Yeah.

Danny Pirello And then it goes into the fridge and it kind of congeals and then...to this point it's just been brined. Nothing has been put onto the chicken and then it goes into the deep fryer at 375 degrees for six to eight minutes and there's no batter. He's just this is like.

Ollie Horn But he's dried the skin out a bit in the fridge it seems.

Danny Pirello Yeah exactly and then it comes and of course it comes to room temperature after it's been in the fridge and then he frys it. And then he takes that out and tosses it in Sam Sauce which has Birdseye chilies, scallions, ginger, and all kinds of stuff. He has his recipe for it. I've like I played around with different recipes for it but like that process of taking this chicken it's cooked just it's so beautiful and like it's simple but it's still it's still moist and cooked perfectly. And then tossing it in this sauce with ginger and chilies and stuff like that and then just serve it on a brown paper bag like rustic, simple, delicious - I played around with that for a while and tried to use you know use that in the sandwich and that was cool those were good but the sandwich I felt like still needed that it needed that crust it needed some of that southern inspiration.

Ollie Horn So let's pause for a moment here then. So what we've learned so far is you'd like chicken with sauce right. And you like it spicy, and you seem to have a preference for chicken that's had like a flour breading rather than like a batter.

Danny Pirello Yeah.

Ollie Horn Am I right so far?

Danny Pirello Yeah I mean so. So basically take a step back all these different styles have their their purposes. I'm looking for something very specific for this sandwich that I've been working on so I had some of the other components of the sandwich. This red cabbage slaw.

Ollie Horn How are you making that?

Danny Pirello So the red cabbage slaw is It's super simple. It's chopped red cabbage top chopped really really thin, serrano chilies, ginger, garlic, I'll throw some mint cilantro into there, and just rice wine vinegar and some lime juice, and just put a plate on top of it in the fridge let it sit for a few hours.

Ollie Horn So is it slightly tangy?

Danny Pirello It is yeah It's tangy it's spicy and it's super crispy. Yeah. So that was a component that I've always used my sandwiches. I make these pickles that are like somewhere between like a dill and a B&B they're like they're spicy but they're a little bit sweet and they're relatively quick like there's still of a good amount of crisp to them.

Ollie Horn And again super acidic I imagine right?

Danny Pirello Yeah pretty acidic yeah. And then then there's this aoli that I make with it's this I don't even know what this stuff is called but it's I found it in like Asian grocery stores and it's it's crispy chilies and garlic like fried chilies and garlic and oil and it gets super condensed.

Ollie Horn Oh yeah yeah. Are you talking about ra-yu?

Danny Pirello Maybe I don't remember what it's called. I've used different kinds of it.

Ollie Horn I think I can imagine exactly what you're talking about.

Danny Pirello Yeah. And you have to stir and get all the chilies out of it. You only need a little bit put aoli in it it turns the aoli bright orange.

Ollie Horn I've never thought of doing this this is a great idea because yeah. Because what you get because what's great about these jars right you can buy one jar you can continue to top it up with oil, and the oil will still get flavoured for you as long as you want.

Danny Pirello For sure.

Ollie Horn Super popular in Hong Kong cooking as well right.

Danny Pirello I would only imagine. So if I have time I make the aoli.

Ollie Horn And how do you make an aoli?

Danny Pirello So I do just a super simple in a cuisinart egg yolks, neutral oil. I like to use a blend of I actually like to use a blend of olive oil and grape seed oil.

Ollie Horn Yeah. Great olive oil here in San Francisco isn't it?

Danny Pirello Incredible. And just a little bit of Dijon mustard, some salt. I do it in a cuisinart because I just don't have the chops to do it in a bowl quite yet but I'm working on it. But you know if I don't have the time I'll just use mayonnaise. I'll just buy some good mayonaise.

Ollie Horn And then you add a little bit of this chilli oil.

Danny Pirello Yeah. I'm just doing it to taste and colour you know like I want to be bright orange.

Ollie Horn Nice.

Danny Pirello And so those are those are the components. So let's talk about the chicken.

Ollie Horn Finally the bread?

Danny Pirello Of course. I have not found these in California, but my best case scenario bread is they're called Martin's Potato Rolls. They make them in Boston they sell them in all the grocery store stores they're cheap. They're seeded like sesame seeded potato rolls.

Ollie Horn Are they soft?

Danny Pirello They're soft. They're super soft and I just hit them and clarified butter and sear them up.

Ollie Horn Tell me about these rolls. Are they kind of like sweet like a brioche?

Danny Pirello No they're not as sweet as brioche. They're more neutral than brioche. They're like your classic like New England hamburger roll.

Ollie Horn I was gonna ask could you use them for a hamburger?

Danny Pirello Absolutely.

Ollie Horn And they're round?

Danny Pirello They're round.

Ollie Horn That's interesting as when I think of a chicken sandwich I think of like a sub shaped like a rectangle.

Danny Pirello Yeah. So these are soft, round. You can't get them out here so I try to find... I'll use brioche in a pinch but I do think the brioche is a little bit sweet it does hold up to frying on the pan with with butter a little bit better than the Martin's Potato Rolls but you know I'm trying to find that perfect potato roll. I haven't quite got to the step where I'm going to make my own potato rolls but that is definitely in the cards.

Ollie Horn What what is a potato roll. Is it using potato to make the roll?

Danny Pirello I would imagine. I don't know that some kind of potato starch. Yeah maybe. I honestly don't know how they make these Martin potato rolls but I'd love to find out because they're incredible.

Ollie Horn So we've got this roll. We've sliced it in half. We've covered it in clarified butter. We've put it on the grill. We've toasted it. Yep. Then I guess on the bottom bun we're putting the sauce first.

Danny Pirello We're putting the aoli on the bottom bun, pickles.

Ollie Horn Then slaw?

Danny Pirello Pickles chicken down.

Ollie Horn OK.

Danny Pirello And then and then on the top bun we're doing a aoli and we're doing this chili. I mean say the scallion ginger like salsa basically.

Ollie Horn Oh nice.

Danny Pirello On the aoli on the top bun and then the chicken's down. And the slaw is on top of that on top of the chicken. Top it and then it gets - this is so crucial and we'll get to this when we talk about the chicken. There's two really crucial steps is the top bun goes on and it just gets a little crush.

Ollie Horn A litle push!

Danny Pirello You have to crush it down a little bit and then wrapped in paper. And I am a firm believer that like this sandwich is gonna be its best when it's been wrapped in paper and sat for like 10 15 minutes at least to congeal.

Ollie Horn It's almost like the ideal delivery burger then. Yeah exactly. OK. So I can imagine everything apart from the chicken. Here's the things that I can't currently imagine. I can't imagine the shape right. How you getting chicken to be around. Can't imagine what the outside is looking like. I still don't know if we're doing like a flower dredging, or...

Danny Pirello So let's let's talk about this chicken so I'll just I'll just walk you through my technique and and what we've covered so far is it's a mixture of karaage techniques, Korean techniques, and Southern techniques. So we'll take bone-in skin-on chicken thighs.

Ollie Horn Fantastic. Already I'm with you.

Danny Pirello Bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs. I'm going to brine them in the David Chang style salt sugar brine about two hours.

Ollie Horn And what's your ratio for this brine?

Danny Pirello It's a half cup sugar, half cup of salt, four cups of water.

Ollie Horn OK.

Danny Pirello I'm going to brine them for two three hours.

Ollie Horn Is this such thing as brining chicken too much? If you put that over night is that a problem?

Danny Pirello Yeah it would get too salty or it would get. Yeah would get I don't know. I don't know what else would happen. But my my interpretation is that would get too salty. I mean I've had over-brined pork chops and like then you got to like use them in a stew or something because they're a little bit too salty.

Ollie Horn And have you not thought about adding anything else to this brine?

Danny Pirello I thought about it but I there's so much else going on here that I think that just having that first the base level of brine is enough.

Ollie Horn And what you're looking for here is to kind of tenderize the meat is that right? With the brining.

Danny Pirello Yeah. A Yeah exactly. Bit of flavor. So it sits in the brine for two hours. This is a crucial part: after it comes out of the brine, the next step is steaming it. It's got to sit and come to room temperature out of the water so I take it out of the water and put it in a pan. I just let it sit on the counter for an hour until it's completely room temperature. I don't wanna put it in that steam when it's cold because it'll toughen up the meat. It'll make it get tense and tough and like put some strain on that skin. You know what I'm saying? So I let it sit come to room temperature and then I have a big like industrial steamer and medium heat for 45 minutes I'll steam these thighs.

Ollie Horn And what happens to the skin while you're steaming it?

Danny Pirello So the skin it cooks through but the skin is like soft and rubbery and ready to get super crispy which is beautiful right.

Ollie Horn Because right now I'm kind of imagining the chicken is looking like, have you ever had Singaporean chicken rice.

Danny Pirello Yeah. Exactly.

Ollie Horn Is that how it's kind of looking right now?

Danny Pirello Exactly.

Ollie Horn Like a bit pasty...

Danny Pirello Super pasty it looks...it's not super appetizing looking but so at this point we take the thighs out we put we put them in the refrigerator for two hours and we let them just sit and congeal and they each form into these little units with like a little fat cap underneath them and they cool you just plop them out and then.

Ollie Horn Oh so most of the fat has now been rendered out of the thigh?

Danny Pirello Pretty much yeah. So we take them out of the fridge after two hours. And again we let them come back to room temperature.

Ollie Horn Already we like six hours into this dish aren't we?

Danny Pirello Yeah. So the prep on these thighs does take a little while but if you could do it all ahead of time you can actually have a super quick pick up on these sandwiches. But so this is the crucial step. So I found, and the reason why I use the bone and skin on thighs is because cooking them steaming them with the bone in I feel like produce just a much better end product than using a boneless skinless thigh.

Ollie Horn I can absolulutely believe it I'm sure the bone imparts flavor. I'm sure it helps keep its structure as well.

Danny Pirello Of course after you after you steam it and let it sit in the fridge when you take it out you can do one cut down the back and a turn that bone pops right out right. . And then you have these beautiful thighs with the skin on just totally ready to go so I pop the bones out of all of them and then I do AP flour with just a little bit of corn starch that's just salt and pepper. And then of course I use the buttermilk so buttermilk first. I take the buttermilk and I use some of that chili oil from before I pour some of the oil into the buttermilk. I pour some of that buttermilk into my AP flour a little corn starch and I just kind of whisk it around to make these little flaky crumbly bits in the flour. And what happens is you go into the buttermilk. You go into the flour and those flaky crumbly bits stick to the outside and they make those flakes those that maybe...

Ollie Horn So you're putting some of this chili into the flour.

Danny Pirello Yeah. Well it's going into it's going to the butter milk.

Ollie Horn I'm sorry the buttermilk.

Danny Pirello And I'm whisking around and then pouring some of that buttermilk chili mixture - just a little bit - into the flour and whisking it around and it makes these little globular bits in the flour so I do that before I batter each one right.

Ollie Horn Okay. And it's these little bits that are becoming the crispy bits.

Danny Pirello Little bit flaky crispy bits on the outside. I've A/Bd it I've done it without pouring that in. Oh my god it makes a huge difference. So then we're taking our chicken that's been in the buttermilk it's been flour it's gone through all these other steps.

Ollie Horn How long's it been in the butter milk?

Danny Pirello I just cover it totally cover it.

Ollie Horn Okay.

Danny Pirello I don't let it sit in the butter milk for too long.

Ollie Horn Are you putting any flour on before you put it in the buttermilk?

Danny Pirello No.

Ollie Horn So it's just take the chicken as it is, once you've taken the bone out in the buttermilk then straight into the flour.

Danny Pirello That's right. Okay.

Ollie Horn And how is it looking is it looking like...

Danny Pirello Covered. Completely covered. I make sure that it's completely covered and at this point I let them sit out for a little bit. Once they've all been properly battered on a baking tray on a little baking sheet so that it doesn't have complete contact so they can sit out kind and the whole thing can air out. Yeah. Or like a rack I should say baking rack and then I'm going into a I use like a deep kind of casolet a dutch oven to fry.

Ollie Horn Oh OK. Right.

Danny Pirello And I get my oil blend of canola oil and vegetable oil two three hundred seventy five degrees and I do triple fry. That is quick triple fry. Thirty seconds in thirty seconds out. Thirty seconds in thirty seconds out thirty seconds in and then.

Ollie Horn All atof the same temperature?

Danny Pirello All the same temperature and then at this point the chicken is like a perfect golden brown. So it's just perfect. So I'll take that out. We're getting really close to the end here. I'll put this I'll put this chicken on a cutting board.

Ollie Horn Final stretch!

Danny Pirello The crucial this is like the last part of our sandwich is already everything's ready to go through to go on the sandwich. I will take this piece of chicken put it these tinfoil over it and I'll just kind of crush it down a little bit it'll break all the sinew inside of this is chicken thigh and it'll just make it so that when you bite into it you can get a clean succinct bite. You're not pulling anything out. You're not pulling the thigh out of the sandwich. You know it's been it's been kind of crushed a little bit.

Ollie Horn And of course the chicken is so tender.

Danny Pirello It's so tender.

Ollie Horn And you can just buy little bits off.

Danny Pirello Yeah. So that so that goes on in the sandwich top goes on it gets wrapped and served.

Ollie Horn Who hae you cooked this for?

Danny Pirello I've cooked this for probably like 30 40 people at this point through dinner parties at my buddy's house we're getting ready to do a pop up at this place neck of the woods in Richmond in the Richmond District where we have access to a full kitchen and then the goal is to continue to do these pop ups and then see where that takes us. The thing that I pride myself on and some of it is so important to me is the architectural integrity of the sandwich. The flavors are all there. It's balanced like I think that all the components going into into it are balancing it. It's the right amount of citrus it's the right amount of sweet the right amount of spicy. The crunch is unparalleled on this sandwich. And like you know the bread is is just it's not causing any problems. The bread's not too hard. You can bite through the whole sandwich. You're not making a mess with this sandwich. There's a couple different styles of fried chicken sandwiches like but this is like your clean easy to eat, like deep complexity of flavor but are architecturally sound fried chicken sandwich.

Ollie Horn That was Danny. Oh he was so much fun to talk to and he was one of those guests that was properly inspirational because the moment I finished this conversation I made sure I got myself straight to Japan Town and bought all of the ingredients to make my Japanese karaage and I made sure to buy the ra-yu and Kewpie mayonnaise so I could replicate his burger sauce. I made a dipping for sauce my chicken. Goodness me. It was delicious. Danny - such a super interesting, generous guy. The day before I left San Francisco we did a living room comedy show at my friend's house. I invited Danny over and he brought a massive great big crate of alcohol and spirit samples. We spent the entire night drinking them got to about midnight. We decided to turn the barbecue on, stick a cast iron pan on, and just grab a load of leftovers and food that was knocking about to try and create some new dish. And Danny is exactly the kind of person I enjoy spending time with in the kitchen. Just super fun, really experimental and goodness me what a fried chicken sandwich. My main regret is I haven't yet tried it but I look forward to doing so one day. Danny if you're listening to this I'm still waiting. So that was Episode 2! Episode 3 is going to come out next week if you'd like to be the first to know, then please do subscribe to this podcast wherever you're listening to it. If you'd like to get in touch. Then you can do so using the email address podcast@pona.app that's podcast@pona.app. You can find me on Instagram at olliehornpics. All that's left to do is to say goodbye and see you next week!