Travel & Food - I Challenged EVERY YouTube Chef (Best Fried Chicken Wins).

Today, we're making the internet's most viral fried chicken from YouTube's greatest chefs. From expertly crafted wings... Love it. ...to diabolical double fried concoctions... Crunchiest thing I've ever eaten in my life. ...let's find out which fried chicken is the world's best. It is time for Gordon Ramsay's buttermilk fried chicken. Expectations could not be higher. First off, marinade. Now, in here, I've got buttermilk, shallots, garlic, and onion. Okay, so quite a bit of flavor inside the buttermilk. Okay, chicken comes out. Chicken goes directly into the seasoned all-purpose flour. There's no other starches in there, just flour. Now, I love my chicken crispy. The secret there is to dredge it twice. And finally, time to fry. That looks like exquisite fried chicken. It almost looks like there's a cornflake crust on the outside. There's just so much texture from that double dredge. But I like that he's finishing the oven so it doesn't get overly crispy and burn. Get your honey and just drizzle the honey in the peppercorns. Now we're talking. Is this gonna be a little hot honey situation? That looks insanely good. You've got this sort of fragrant, incredible, heated honey. That looks phenomenal. Let's see how it tastes. Step one, we'll need to season our buttermilk. We'll go in with the chicken, making sure to get that all beautifully incorporated. And it's into the fridge overnight. And with our chicken beautifully brined, it's time to dredge. Again, we go from the buttermilk directly into our lightly seasoned flour. Kind of just making sure it's nicely coated. Just like Gordon, yes, we like our chicken crispy. I love my chicken crispy. So we'll shake it off and then go back into that buttermilk. Kind of dipping it in there, almost forming a batter on the outside. It's now way more thick. But either way from here, it's now back into the flour. Really is so much coating on the outside now. I hope it's not too much. I mean, this thing is fully covered, filled with texture, just like he said. And it's into the oil to fry. In the meantime, we'll need some black peppercorns as well as some pink peppercorns. And we'll just gently crush them up. That texture should be perfect. Then we go in with the honey. That looks crazy. With that, our color is looking great on this chicken. A little bit of salt. And we'll finish in the oven. And this just looks off the chart. Super, super crispy. But it is, of course, time for the most important part. Just hitting it with that peppery hot honey. And it looks like it's got a little bit of everything. It's got a kick. It's got that sweetness, that crispiness. Let's see if Gordon's got the goods when it comes to southern fried chicken. Wow. I love the inside. The outside's a bit more of a question mark for me. The outside is really thick on my piece. Are you guys getting that? It's almost like fried dough. Straight up, this is like an inch thick on my piece. It's crazy. But that honey is incredible. And I like that when you bite into it, you taste that pepper. It doesn't give off that really processed flavor that I don't love with brine chicken. Say what you want about Gordon, but he's really good at making unique flavors pair together. Pepper with honey is something I would have never thought. And it is awesome. It does still have a nice crunch on the outside, for sure. Yes. However, it's too thick. And I think the fatal flaw here is the double dip. This batter is so much thicker than other ones. This had no chance to ever get crispy. I feel like the fried chicken for me is a B tier. But because of the honey, I'm tempted to bring it up to an A tier. Honey was an S. I'm going to give the chicken overall a B. It's a mix of the breading and this chicken skin for me. I'm going to give it a B. What that means is the Gordon Ramsay fried chicken has landed in B tier. We have made it to Binging with Babish's Inferno Wing Challenge. Now, here's the thing about Binging with Babish. He is the king of food. He has tons of fried chicken recipes. This one right here is not the most traditional. But when you see how crazy it is, you're going to understand why I chose it. You want to end up with about a pound of peppers total. I'm using mostly habaneros. Okay, we are starting off extremely hot. That is an absurd amount of peppers. What we're doing here is actually making homemade hot sauce. Let's see his process. And then we're going to blend on high speed for at least one minute until the mixture is completely smooth. At which point, we are going to evacuate into a non-reactive container, cover loosely with plastic wrap, and allow to sit out at room temperature for three days in order to ferment. All right, sauce is done. Let's move over to the wings. Let's see how he does them. We are placing them into some vegetable oil, which we have heated to about 225 degrees Fahrenheit. That is absurdly low oil temperature. Typically, when you're frying wings, they're like 350. Our wings are going to emerge pretty pale and flabby and not appetizing to the human eye. But don't worry because we're just getting started. Okay, this is genius. He's basically reverse searing the chicken wings. It's a double fry situation where you start them super low, you let them dry out and cool, and then you flash fry them at high temperature. Freaking genius. Look at those wings tossing in that homemade sauce. All right, setting those wings on fire looks cool, but how is it going to impact the final taste? So many unique techniques here. Let's give it a shot. This one's all about the sauce and it's going to be hot. Just like Babish, we'll need a ridiculous amount of habaneros, couple Fresnos for good measure, now the garlic, and of course, the vinegar. Just an absurd amount of firepower in this hot sauce. But either way, we'll blend it up. So the key to authentic hot sauce is that deep fermented flavor. So that's what we're doing here. Into a mason jar and we'll actually let this sit at room temp for a whole weekend. And just like that, it has been three days. And if you look closely, I think we actually have some tiny bubbles, a sign that this hot sauce is actually fermented. Just like Babish, we'll now strain out that excess pulp, leaving us with this beautiful thin and orange hot sauce. And we'll just gently cook down to neutralize some of that spice, finishing with some salt, sugar, and MSG. Who would have known homemade hot sauce is this simple? It looks and smells amazing. Moving over to our wings, we're starting them off in an extremely low temperature 225 Fahrenheit oil. Notice how zero bubbles or sizzlings coming off of those wings because we're essentially confit-ing them, almost like a reverse sear. Just like that, it has been 20 minutes, so we'll now remove... Oh boy, these are extremely pale, but that's all part of the plan. And we'll let them cool down for an hour. With our wings fully chilled, I'm not gonna lie, they are looking rough right now. I mean, these are as pale as pale can be, but hopefully not for long. And it's into our 400 degree oil. Whoo, oh yeah. Clearly, these are getting crispy. And these right here are a lot more like it. I was starting to lose faith at one point with this process, but just check out the color of these wings. We'll get them into a bowl, adding on that incredibly spicy hot sauce, and we'll give them a toss. These things already look perfect, but this is Babish after all, so we're not done yet. We'll add in a bit more sauce, a little bit of vodka, and we'll try that one more time, and we'll flambe. Oh yeah, now we're talking, baby. Whoo, I give you Inferno wings. And we'll get them all plated up with some blue cheese on the side. Let's see how our Babish Inferno wings taste. Guys, homemade hot sauce, who's excited? I've always wanted to make homemade hot sauce. It's so cool. I love that sauce. I want to bottle it and eat it every day. Do you really? Mm-hmm. Ooh, that's hot. It is spicy, but it's awesome. You can taste the fermented flavor in there. Oh yeah. I really like these wings. That's a little too hot for me, but there's something about it I keep going back. That sauce actually has a depth of flavor. It's not just like it's spicy in your face. It makes these wings a lot more enjoyable. It is a completely different style of fried chicken than we've had today. There's no outer coating. There's no buttermilk brine, and this cook style is honestly elite. I'm really impressed with this one. I know this isn't like his go-to chicken recipe, but I love it. I love the hot sauce. It's unique, and I love this style chicken wing with no breading. I'm gonna give it an A+. Love the sauce. Love everything about this. I have to go S. Babish, if you're watching this, you know I love you. Today, with this one, I think an A is fair. What it means is Babish's Hellfire wings have made it to A tier, and we have made it to Nick DiGiovanni's ultimate fried chicken sandwich. Let's see if he can cook. Okay, boneless and skinless. I actually like not using skin here because you want that outer crunch. You don't want like the rubbery inside. That's a veteran move. Okay, pretty traditional buttermilk and hot sauce brine. Okay, this is very different. After the buttermilk brine, we're going on to a tray and then essentially dry brining it. I've never seen that with fried chicken. Oh, interesting. So we are directly seasoning the chicken. Typically, we just season the dredge or the flour. But if you do it this way, you get more direct seasoning and flavor right on the chicken. Okay, multiple types of flour giving us contrasting textures. I like that. Also seasoning well. We'll add in just a few little sprinkles of that wet marinade from earlier. These little bits here will become those perfect crispy morsels that make for the most amazing bite. Okay, chicken goes into the egg, now into the flour, making sure that gets nicely packed in. Starting at the lower temp, we already have a nice crispiness. All right, we've cranked the temp. It's now back into the oil for ultimate crispiness. Finally assembling that sandwich, topping with the chicken and that coleslaw. I can't lie, it does look good, but how does it taste? Let's find out. And this one all starts with some boneless, skinless thighs. Did somebody say boneless, skinless guys? No, Kyle. Thighs. Oh. You need a doctor? No, I do not need a doctor, Kyle. So tell me what happened here. I think I sprained my leg or something. Now, I was inspecting your sample here and it's quite dark. What? It's my leg. Is your name John? No. What? And we'll go in with the buttermilk as well as the hot sauce. Just like Nick, we'll give it a good mix and it's into the fridge overnight. Just like that, it's been 12 hours and from here, we'll get those thighs onto a tray. This is a technique I've definitely never seen before. It reminds me of like a dry brine, letting it dry out before the actual frying process. Definitely a lot more work, but let's see if it ends up being worth it. And just like that, our thighs are beautifully dried out. So we'll hit them with the seasoning. Now to fry, we have our special dredge that contains three types of flour. I'm spooning in some of that reserved marinade and just mixing that in. All this additional texture should help with crispiness. We'll go into the egg mixture, dripping off the excess and it's into the flour. Just like Nick, we'll pat it all in, kind of squeezing all that texture into the chicken. We'll give it a little shake and it's into the oil for our first fry. Going back and forth and in it goes. That didn't take very long. Still definitely looking a bit pale at this point, but we'll set it aside. Now we'll crank the temp and it's back in the oil for our final crisping stage. Oh yeah, can't lie. This looks like some incredible fried chicken and it is definitely off the charts crispy. To assemble, we have our beautifully steamed bun, nice dollop of Nick's special sauce, all sorts of stuff in there, including poppy seeds. We'll add on that beautifully crispy chicken, a little bit of his slaw and we'll top it off. At least visually, we are in for a treat. Let's see how it tastes. Not easy to make, but was it worth it? Oh yeah. Wow, that's really good. Such a light crispiness. It's almost light like tempura batter. I think you hit it right on the head. There's a distinction between crispy and crunchy. This kind of perfectly threads the needle between the two. The crunchy is more of that bite. The crispiness is more of that like little flaky, airy bite and it's awesome. It's really good. It's one of the best fried chicken sandwiches I've ever had. It's shatteringly crispy and it's so juicy. I love this. We didn't over batter it. It wasn't like a multiple dip situation. There wasn't a batter. It was just a very light, crispy dredge. There are so many things going for this sandwich. The only negative is that, man, it is not easy to make. Like that is an investment of time. You have to be prepared for a chicken weekend. But if you are prepared for that, it's worth it. This is a fire recipe. I gotta go S tier. This is an S tier fried chicken. I'm gonna go S. I would love to one day give Nick a C tier. Unfortunately, today is not the day. It's gonna be an S tier for Nick. We have made it to Joshua Weissman's the best fried chicken at home. We'll see about that. We're going with a classic buttermilk. We're in Texas. This is South, brother. Starting with a buttermilk brine. One and a half teaspoons of MSG, a non-negotiable. He is very heavily seasoning the buttermilk. Typically, it's just buttermilk and hot sauce for me. Ideally, you'll marinate this in the fridge for at least an hour. The best case scenario, overnight or even two nights. Two nights of buttermilk fried chicken. I feel like I have to try that. It sounds too long, but then again, maybe it'll lead to the best fried chicken. Going with the flour, potato starch combo. Love to see that. Now into the flour mixture. Really gently press to get that flour to adhere. That is the key to the best fried chicken, pressing in the flour to get all that nice texture. Looking pretty good. It is finally time to fry. You want the oil to be around 325 to 350 Fahrenheit. And I can't lie, that is some extremely golden brown, crispy-looking fried chicken that has some of the strongest and darkest crust I have ever seen with fried chicken. I think it's finally time we give this one a taste. This seems like an extremely technical recipe, so gonna do my best here to recreate it perfectly. Start with exactly two cups of buttermilk, two tablespoons of kosher salt, teaspoon of sugar, one and a half teaspoons of MSG, a healthy tablespoon of garlic powder, two teaspoons of smoked paprika, a little teaspoon of cayenne for a kick. There's so much seasoning in there. We are clearly building all sorts of flavor with this recipe. Typically with a buttermilk brine, I'll only add hot sauce. We'll go in with our whole chopped up chicken. So much nice color in there. This is already looking insane. And it's into the fridge to marinate. It has been 48 hours, so we'll get our chicken onto a rack to drain. It really does look like some of the most flavorful chicken I've ever seen. Moving over to our dredge, we'll now add half a cup of potato starch to our two and a half cups of all-purpose flour, tablespoon of salt, teaspoon of MSG, teaspoon of cayenne, teaspoon of garlic, half a teaspoon of onion, two teaspoons of black pepper, and finally a teaspoon of oregano. Now we add a third cup of our flour mixture, essentially forming a batter, which is actually something I typically don't do with fried chicken. We're actually going to flick in some of that batter into the flour, kind of giving it some additional texture. Now our chicken goes into the batter and we go into the flour. Just making sure to get that fully covered, packing it in. This texture here looks perfect. And it's into our 350 Fahrenheit oil to fry. Our smaller pieces are just about done, but I am starting to get a little worried about these bigger pieces because the color's already there. However, that internal temp is still under 100 degrees. I'm even keeping the oil temp on the low end to try and avoid it getting too dark, but it's been over 15 minutes and this is starting to look honestly overly crispy. Dropping the oil temp even more because this is literally taking forever to cook, but finally our chicken should be done. Most of our pieces look nice and golden brown, but man, these big pieces that have been in the oil for like 20 minutes are looking well past crispy. Taking on some dark burnt colors on the inside, though I can't lie, the inside still looks super nice and juicy. Joshua Weissman has had some of the highest ranked food on our channel, so expectations are high. This just feels crazy crunchy. This might be the crunchiest thing I've ever eaten in my life. You really got to work for it. It actually hurts the roof of my mouth. I almost feel like I need like a mama bird to like pre-chew this for me and feed it to me. That's how crunchy it is. It is kind of a satisfying crunch. I think it's a little bit too much because the oil temperature was just too high for the size of these pieces. I think a way better strategy would have been to kind of quickly flash fry them or double fry them, then finish them in the oven, but that just wasn't the case here. It's a little too salty for me, actually. And I think I know why. As we were dredging this, we ran out of flour, meaning all the salt and MSG went into about three quarters of this chicken. If there was more flour in the recipe to dilute it, I think it would have been better. Is there a chance we did something wrong here? Yes, however, this chicken right here, I think is C-tier. I'm going C. I think a C is fair. All that said, it's going to be C-tier. We have made it to the one and only Village Cooking and their Chicken 6-5. If anybody can make great food, it's these guys right here. Love to see we're cooking over fire. Step one, we are chopping up the chicken into nice little bite-sized pieces. And controversially, we are washing the chicken, adding what looks like a super flavorful spice paste to the chicken. The garlic, we got the ginger, we got the color. This is looking insane. It is finally time to fry. I mean, they are literally cooking for the village. That is an absurd amount of chicken. Okay, looking nice and crispy and golden brown. I mean, we got chilies, we got ground pepper, we got chili paste. Finally, we are adding that chicken back into what looks like the most flavorful sauce of all time. Now, they're adding in something called idli. It's basically a carb source made out of rice. Finishing with the fresh curry leaves. Whew, I need to try this. And this one very controversially starts with washing our chicken. So people say the issue with washing chicken is you basically spread a whole bunch of chicken juice across the kitchen, potentially leading to more problems. But either way, we're left with some beautiful washed chicken and this delicious looking chicken tea. Kyle, I made you something. What is this? And we'll strain it out. We'll start building flavor with some turmeric paste, some red chili paste, and some garlic ginger paste. Some black pepper, a couple eggs, some lemon, and finally the salt. And just like village cooking, we'll get it all mixed up. Just check out that color. And finally, it's into the oil to fry. Whoa, very wet chicken. Made it look so easy. We're gonna take this one slow. And that is the golden brown color we're looking for. Just super crispy and bubbly. I could eat this as is, but we are not done yet. Next, we'll toast up all of our beautiful spices and we'll go in with the shallots. Oh man, this already smells unbelievable. Now we go in with the ginger garlic paste. Now we'll add the tomatoes. Bunch of green chilies. Talk about building flavor, wow. Now we'll add more chili paste and some salt and pepper. And finally, we go back in with our beautiful chicken. And we can't forget about our idli, these kind of steamed round Indian cakes. It's a carb that doesn't have a ton of flavor, so it should kind of soak up all those incredible spices we've added. We'll get our chicken all mixed up and we'll add them in. And finally, we'll finish with one of my all-time favorite ingredients, some fresh curry leaves. Those idlis have kind of broken up and kind of helped to thicken the sauce. I think we are finally ready to plate. I mean, this just looks incredibly flavorful. The amount of ingredients in here is just out of control. We added so many unique ingredients I typically would never use. Something tells me this might be the best fried chicken of all time. I have been eating an insane amount of fried chicken today. So this is the perfect time to tell you about More Protein Please, the cookbook I made with Hungry Root. It's a collection of high-protein meals inspired by food I actually eat. Hungry Root is a delivery service that brings together meal kit convenience, recipes, and grocery store variety. And I built a cookbook of recipes that you can directly choose from, get ingredients for, and make at home. One of my favorites is the seared wagyu ribeye steak and baby broccoli. My other favorites include this sheet pan salmon with potatoes, tzatziki, and broccoli, Korean bulgogi chicken rice cooked in bone broth, and of course, filet mignon with arugula Italiano. You can find meals based on your diet with options like gluten-free and other dietary needs and preferences. I also added a few staples to my cookbook like classic chimichurri, kimchi, and organic brown rice. So after a day like today, having protein-forward meals already picked out makes deciding what to eat so much easier. Check out my digital cookbook on Hungry Root today and find recipes that are right for you. Click the link below or scan the QR code to go right to my cookbook, More Protein, Please. Please have some more fried chicken. Please, I'm begging you, man. Okay. Chicken six-five, though this is nothing like the chicken six-five we've made in the past. It's so fragrant. I absolutely love the flavor. I do not like the exterior coating. I'm getting almost like a soggy bread situation. I like this, but it's not as good as the other chicken six-five we made before. That's just crispy, and that's more like fried chickeny. This is saucy, and I agree with Sophia. It's a little bit mushy on the outside, but the flavor's incredible. To be fair, we did not have a recipe to work off of. All they wrote was like the ingredients, so I was doing my fair share of eyeballing. So that's the major caveat here. It's tough. I'm gonna give it an A. I really like it, actually. I think I'm gonna give it a B. I'm gonna land at a very solid B+. So what it means is our village cooking channel, Chicken Six-Five, is getting B tier. If there is one person who can make the craziest fried chicken of all time, you already know. It's Guga. This is today's special ingredient. So it looks like we're gonna be deep-frying in ghee. I have a feeling this could be incredible. You know, with Guga, it's never just straightforward. He's now deboning the chicken. Mm, okay, this is not your average fried chicken. He's actually gonna marinate the chicken first. Instead of using regular flour, we're using potato starch. It slightly tenderizes the chicken, but at the same time makes an incredible crispy crust. Now it looks like he's making a homemade chili oil, or like chili crisp. I have no idea how he's gonna use this. That looks crazy. And you can clearly see that it's getting a better color. But most importantly, the smell that is coming out of this is amazing. That is an absurd creation here. So much work went into this, even just to make the chili oil, much less making the fried chicken. I'm dying to see how this tastes. Step one, we'll need to break down our drums. I believe what Guga did here is kind of follow the bone, butterflying it like so, allowing him to open it up. Definitely requires some finessing. Just like that, we've exposed the bone. He then kind of whacks it like so. Pleasant lie, and it really is as easy as that. And we'll get him into Guga's special marinade. Not gonna lie, this has all the flavors I love, the ginger, garlic, soy. I feel like these could sneaky be the winner of the day. To make our chili oil, we'll start with an absurd amount of chilies. Oh! I got a lot of powdered chili in my nose. I'm so sad the fried chicken isn't gonna come out good, Guga. Next, the green onion, garlic, we'll add in the soy sauce, a little bit of Shaoxing cooking wine, a healthy dose of sesame oil, and finally, we'll add in our liquid gold, aka ghee. Immediately get that amazing smell, and that looks insane. And we'll just give it a good mix to get all those flavors incorporated. I'm telling you, this already smells out of control. Now that our ghee is fully infused, we'll strain it all out. Just check out that insane crimson color. That is just beautiful. I cannot believe we are using this to deep fry our chicken. It's been a couple hours, so our chicken is fully marinated, and it looks like it's picked up so much flavor. Now we go right into our potato starch. Feels so different than regular flour, and it fries up completely differently. And finally, we go into our ghee chili oil. And that color is looking crazy. I mean, that has got some serious texture to it with a nice red tinge. Plating it up just like Guga, on top of some cabbage with just a little bit of togarashi and some salt, little bit of extra chili oil over the top. I think it's finally time we give this a taste. Ooh, that has got a serious kick, and usually Guga can't really take heat. Yes, Guga hates spice. However, I love this. The chili flavor is intense, but it's awesome if you like spice. Deep chili oil flavor, wow. I love that spice. It is so good. I don't even feel like I'm eating fried chicken. It's like elevated or something. But Guga, you have made a masterpiece. It's borderline too spicy, but it's awesome. I really felt like this was gonna be stunt food after seeing the shape, after seeing the process. My man Guga, he's done it again. This right here is a banger recipe. It could not be less convenient. It's a lot, but I kinda feel like it's worth it. I think I'm gonna go S. I'm going A. I'm giving it an S. Congratulations, Guga. What it means is your chili oil fried chicken has made its way to S tier. And this guy just looks like an idiot. Max the meat. Next up, Max the Meat Guy's dry-aged buffalo chicken. Why would you ever do that? This chicken has been sitting in buffalo sauce for 24 hours, and we're gonna dry-age it. I mean, talk about covered and smothered. That's... Four hours later, had to go for a quick taste. That is delicious. What was I thinking? That ain't right. Clearly, a lot of flavor on the chicken, but then we're gonna dry-age it. How is that gonna turn out? Buffalo chicken remains my favorite Max Jerky flavor, though a close second is Korean barbecue. If you haven't tried Max Jerky yet, consider now the time. Use code FRIEDCHICKEN25 to get 25% off your entire order. I promise it is the best-tasting jerk in the market, and we appreciate the support. Nine days later, the bird was looking wrinkled. Not gonna lie, looking a little sketchy, but looks can be deceiving. I had my wing hat on. Ooh, the wing hat. I really hope I still have that thing. Okay, so no brine, no dredge, no buttermilk, no flour. We're going raw. You can't deny that crispiness. Is it actually amazing? Let's find out. Just wanna start by apologizing in advance for what's about to happen to this chicken. For my recipe, we'll, of course, be starting with a whole chicken that we'll get into our container, and we'll completely cover it in Frank's hot sauce. And we'll get it in the fridge overnight. And just like that, it's been 24 hours. And as you can see, this chicken is just completely covered and smothered in that hot sauce, which means it's time to dry age. We'll get them all strung up, and I will see you guys in a little over a week. And just like that, I have my chicken wing hat on, but more importantly, our chicken has been dry aged. After the full seven days, the outside has dried out significantly. You can still see all that stunning hot sauce orange color. So last time, I only fried the wings, but today we are, of course, taking this to the next level. Just gonna slowly dip it in. His butt's steaming. Oh yeah, wow. You're definitely gonna wanna keep your heat off at this point. My thought is that because the outside's so dried out from the dry age, we might actually get some incredibly crispy skin. It has taken quite a while, but just check out that color. I did not have high expectations, but this might be one of the most beautiful-looking chickens I think I've ever cooked. It has this beautiful golden brown, slightly reddish color. Let's see what we got inside. Start by removing the dark meat. I was half expecting the inside to be completely red from the hot sauce. Most importantly, is the breast even remotely juicy still? Part of me was fully expecting this to be completely dried out. This actually looks awesome. The real question is, did that hot sauce actually penetrate and was dry aging worth it slash is it still edible? Let's find out. All right, guys, it is time for Max, the meat guy's fried chicken. Yeah, dude's a loser. Better rank this high, seriously. Straight up, I hope it's bad. All right, guys, seven-day dry-aged chicken with, of course, the hot sauce marinade. Oh, weird. It's a funk. You think this went rotten? I think it's not rotten. It's got a little something going on. It's funky. Straight up, Max, this is like a dry-aged steak, but chicken form. It's a little bit funky. We got a freaking genius over here. Yes. I want to like this a lot because there's no breading on the outside, and typically I like a fried chicken that doesn't have breading, but that little weird flavor thing, I'm not loving. I think I'm gonna go D. What? Are you kidding me, Sophia? That is so disrespectful to Max. How could you do that to me? I'm just scared to eat it. I will give it a D. The jury's spoken. But look, I'm not gonna argue with you guys. If you think it's a D, then unfortunately today it's gonna be D, dear. At least it was convenient. Perhaps the highest level chefs on YouTube, it's time for Fallow's Science of Fried Chicken. We use a mix of sriracha, water, and salt. Okay, so instead of a buttermilk brine, we have a sriracha, water, and salt brine. Interesting. It's not just one type of flour. They're using a blend, allowing them to get the crunchiness, but also the light crispiness, and I'm sure they've nailed that ratio. And now going into a dredge that has some milk powder. It looks very light and watery, so it's not a super thick batter. Back into the flour, really mixing it up well. Really important that you turn the chicken over 30 to 40 times. So this is different than just pressing it in. This is literally ruffling it up a whole bunch. Agitation allows this dry mix to form a crack. Crumples and rumples and mountains in there. Ooh, a little hottie sriracha butter on there. Unsurprisingly, they didn't give exact ratios and recipes. This right here is clearly a work of art, but I think we can take a good stab at it. This is the one I'm debatably most excited about. Fallow makes some incredible food, and they are some truly high-level chefs. So we'll go in with our sriracha water and salt mixture. Give it a nice massage, and it's into the fridge overnight. It's interesting that this one doesn't use buttermilk in the brine. We'll see how that affects the final flavor. Now we'll do our best to recreate Fallow's wet dredge. We'll need some water, buttermilk, kind of a basic chicken seasoning blend, and finally, some milk powder. We'll give it a whisk. For our dry dredge, just like Fallow, we have a combination of all-purpose flour, cornstarch, and tapioca starch. I went with a ratio of 2-1-1. So to start, we go in to the dry, just kind of giving it an initial mix. Give them a shake. Then they go into the wet batter, just kind of allowing that wet dredge to rehydrate before we go back into the flour. Then it's not once, not twice, but apparently 30 times. I'm actually feeling very optimistic because it looks like we've developed a crag, as Fallow said, which I think just means a whole bunch of texture. With that, it's into the oil to fry. Oh, man, that is looking crazy. That is what you like to see. Just like Fallow, we'll finish with a whole bunch of a sriracha honey butter and just a little dusting of seasoning. If we're going just based on how it looks, then we are in for a treat. You want a piece of celery? Usually I'd say no, but on a day like this, Sophia never wants some. I only eat meat. This looks really crunchy. I also learned today there's a difference between crunchiness and crispiness. That's really good fried chicken. I was fully prepared for this to just straight up taste like sriracha. I'm actually getting no sriracha or no spiciness, really. It's not an overly rich fried chicken. It's great. Even though we added the batter, it's not super thick like some of the other ones. Like some of the other ones, it was caked on there. It was almost like fried bread. This one has all sorts of texture. So yes, it is like thicker than normal, but it's maintained that crunch. To that point, there's no sogginess. So if you're looking closely, it's just crunchy all throughout. That fallow recipe did not come with written out instructions. So we were eyeballing all of this and still somehow that process led to what I believe is S-tier fried chicken. This is phenomenal. I think this is an S-tier fried chicken. I have to go S-tier. What it means is fallow fried chicken is S-tier. You knew this one was coming. It is time for Doobly-Doo Bop's how to make the best Korean fried chicken plus science. Let's see. We're gonna do a mix of salt and sugar for our cure. Interesting. So not going with a buttermilk brine to cure it. Okay, so quite a bit of stuff happening here, but it should lead to some juicy and flavorful chicken. Okay, this is what separates Korean fried chicken. We have the all-purpose flour. We're also adding in that tapioca flour. So we get that crunch from the all-purpose. But we also get that thin crispiness from the tapioca. This is different. We are dunking the floured chicken in straight-up water. But this is Doobly-Doo Bop. You better believe we not do be not following directions. What does that even mean? This is gonna be a double fry situation, starting at a lower temperature, now going back into the oil at a higher temperature. That is the result. I'm telling you, there is nothing like Korean fried chicken. I have eaten it in Korea and it is fantastic. I've never successfully made it myself. Let's see if it's possible. And this recipe is all about precision. We start with the water. Now we add exactly 15 grams of our cure that includes some salt, sugar, and MSG. And it's time for our spices. We got garlic, cayenne, onion powder, chili powder, white pepper, turmeric, black pepper, and some parsley, as well as this stuff here, our capsicum powder. First time ever seeing this. It looks crazy. Gotta go for a taste. Whoo! That is spicy, but immediately what comes to mind is the Flamin' Hot Cheetos. It has that kind of MSG depth and flavor to it. But it is spicy. We'll add that to the mix and we'll get it all blended up. And in it goes. Now finishing with two tablespoons of vinegar. We'll give it a good mix and it's into the fridge to cure. Now to make our dredge, we'll start with the all-purpose flour. Adding in our 900 grams, followed by the tapioca flour. 30 more grams of the cure, followed by 30 more grams of the spice mix. We'll give it a good mix and we'll drop it all into the flour. Without touching the chicken, just kind of covering it. And just like Doobie, turning it over at least 20 times here. Just kind of shaking off the excess. And this is where things get crazy. You want to make sure that that batter is as thin as possible by dumping it in water. Yes, we need to dump these in water. Talk about counterintuitive when it comes to something that should be crispy. But as always, we're following this recipe to the T. Shake off the excess moisture and it's back into the flour. I'm just making sure to move this around quite a bit. What I like is that, yes, we've kind of double battered. But at the same time, this exterior still looks very nice and thin. And just like that, it is time for our first fry. Even though this is only the first fry, that color is looking pretty good. We'll crank the temp and go in for our second fry. This one shouldn't take long. The key here is just developing that extremely crispy crunch. And that right there is some fried chicken. I am telling you, the texture and crunch on this chicken straight up looks like the best of the day. Now, for half of our chicken, we're going to be using Doobie Doobop's Yangnyeom sauce. It's kind of sweet, savory, garlicky, and salty. Classic Korean fried chicken flavor. You guys know that I am just a major sucker for Korean food. So you already know this one is going to rank high. Doobie Doobop fried chicken. Shoobie doobie doobie doobop. Damn, this is good fried chicken. You already ate it? I already ate it. It's really good. Korean fried chicken is at an unfair advantage because the sauce is like the best thing ever. This is insanely crispy and the inside is just so flavorful. I think this is a very easy score situation right now. It is a slightly different experience than buttermilk brine fried chicken. Like the inside isn't quite as juicy. However, it's just as flavorful. The crust makes up for it. Add the sauce. I mean, it's got to be S tier. The sauce is an easy S for me. The non-sauce is an A. I'll go with an A because that's kind of the baseline. This is the easiest S of the day. Love it. Doobie Doobop. Doobie knowing what she's doing when it comes to fried chicken. This right here is going to be S tier. We have made it to the golden balance honey barbecue chicken tenders. If there is one dish on social media, fried chicken or not, that I've wanted to try, it's this one right here. Let me show you how to make some incredible honey barbecue chicken tenders. I mean, they just look so good. Starting with some flour. Very heavily seasoning with that spice blend. Okay, looks like we're making a batter. Drop the dry tender into the wet batter. Then into the dry. One last time into the wet. And then just finish into the dry. Always remember, that is wet, dry, wet, dry. This isn't some small crust. I mean, we are developing tons of texture on the outside. Okay, pretty nice looking homemade honey barbecue sauce for those tenders. Time to drop them into oil set at 350. There's something about these tenders that look so freaking good, especially dipped in that ranch. I think it's time we give them a shot. And this one all starts with our chicken tenders, which believe it or not, are actually the tenderloin or filet mignon of a chicken. Starting with a handful of flour. Now, we'll season heavily with this special spice mix. And we'll give them a good mix, getting that all incorporated. The flour will add some cornstarch, a little bit of baking powder, as well as more of that seasoning. Just give it a good mix. Now, we'll just separate half of it and add in the seltzer to thin it out. Just mix it up. And that nice, thin texture here should be perfect. And just like TGB said, it's wet and into the dry. Then we actually go back into the wet batter, followed by one final dip in the dry, and it's time to fry. I mean, that is already looking insanely crispy. That was only our first round of frying, but straight up, this looks like some of the crispiest chicken I've ever seen. We've let them cool down. Now, we'll go back in for one final fry. Doing my best not to overcrowd the pan, and that is what we're looking for. You can tell that is just packed with flavor and texture. Now, we'll just throw on a whole bunch of TGB's famous homemade honey barbecue sauce, and we'll toss to combine. Plate it alongside some ranch. I mean, these things are looking saucy, glossy. There is no way these could be bad. Okay, before we take a bite, let me show you something we've been working on for the past two years. Introducing Island Tacos. We made taco kits that actually taste like something you'd get from a great restaurant. Every kit comes with 10 high-quality tortillas, our from-scratch seasonings, and three sauces we developed ourselves that completely upgrade Taco Night. All you got to do is brown a pound of meat, mix in the seasonings, build your tacos, and you're going to be left with, I'm telling you, the greatest taco on Earth. Not to mention, probably my favorite part is that every kit sold supports the National Pediatric Cancer Foundation to help fund childhood cancer research. I promise these are the best-tasting tacos you will ever have at home. If you want to try them for yourself, head on over to IslandTacos.com. Use code Tacos25 to get 25% off for a limited time. I've always wanted to try this one. I've seen this video. I've seen this video a thousand times. He's made a variation of this video, like, 37 times. I'm not complaining. It always looks so good. All right, a few standouts here. Using chicken tenders actually makes a difference. They're so tender. And they're so juicy. Like, it maintains this juiciness. But they have that little thing on them that I hate. The cartilage, is it? This thing. That— Give me that, Max. Let me take— That thing is the only part of the chicken tender that kind of sucks. But this is an awesome one. I think it looks beautiful. Like, this is the most stunning chicken tender I've ever seen. It is a little too much breading for me. Maybe if we're nitpicking, is it a little bit too thick? Like, personally, I don't like having a batter when I'm making fried chicken. But I think all the positives outweigh that. Like, it is incredibly crispy. The sauce is on point. All those flavors in the seasoning blend come through. This is gonna rank extremely high for me. Only reason I'm not giving this an S is because I think the breading's a little too thick for me. I'm gonna give it an A. This one's right on the line for me. I think an A is good. I'm gonna go with a very solid A. What it means is our golden balance tenders have made it to A tier. We have reached the king of deep-fried foods and, quite frankly, deep-fried cheese. It's time for Bayashi and his Pringles chicken. Starting off with his classic fork technique. Okay, now we have our Pringles. He's really flexing on us here with the 10 million subscriber plaque. Unfortunately, at least as of filming this, we do not have one of those. Okay, so covering that chicken in the Pringles. Now the egg. I'm doing, like, a double-dredge situation here. Oh, it's as simple as that. It's into the oil to deep-fry. I mean, hey, the chicken looks juicy. I am extremely interested to see if the Pringle flavor is actually maintained throughout that whole cooking process. Look, I'm not gonna knock it until I try it. I mean, this video literally has 165 million views. Let's give it a shot. And this one all— And this one all starts with a chicken breast and a fork. And for the Bayashi special, we'll now stab this chicken breast. Feels like thousands of times with our fork. Still not entirely sure what the purpose of this strategy is. But as always, we'll follow our recipe to the T. That looks perfect. And now we get to have some fun. They are literally the most perfectly engineered chip. You also have to get two at a time for some extra crunch. We'll get them on our pan. So unfortunately, as of filming, we have not reached 10 million subscribers, so we don't have a plaque like Bayashi to smash up our Pringles. However, by the time you see this, there is a chance we will have reached it. Safiya, do you think we'll hit it by then? Yes. Kyle, do you think we'll hit it by then? Absolutely not, no. Love the optimism. Guys, if you haven't subscribed yet, whether we hit it or not, make sure you do it right now. And in the meantime, I'm gonna crush some Pringles. Kyle, you really don't think we're gonna hit it, huh? I mean, hey, we're all trying our best, you know? At least we're on the same team, right? Yeah, yeah, for sure. And finally, it's on with the ground Pringles. I mean, if I really think about it, Pringles are full of salt and full of flavor, so this might actually end up tasting good. Now, we top with the egg, making sure to get both sides. Now, we go back in the Pringle mixture. Bayashi is really making sure we get full coverage because, yes, we are then going back into the egg until, finally, it's into the Pringles for a final time. I think it's looking like it's wrapped in a Pringle cocoon, but either way, it's into the oil to fry. And we'll let it cook until nice and crispy. And just like that, whoa, it should be done. I was fully prepared for this crust to completely fall off, but it is just looking picture-perfect. I mean, that right there is juicy. Okay, I'm not gonna lie, the crust does tend to fall off as you slice it, but even still, I was fully prepared for this to be just straight-up stunt food. But at least visually, this is looking pretty epic. All right, Bayashi, what have you done to us this time? You know, it's funny because Bayashi added zero seasonings, and quite frankly, I think he made this fully as stunt food. Like, I don't think this was supposed to taste good, but honestly, it's not bad. Love how he didn't even go with a flavored Pringle. He went with the original. They taste pretty good as breading. I would not make this again. There's a pretty decent crunch on the outside, which I appreciate, but I'm getting this overwhelming flavor of kind of greasy oil fast food, and I don't love that. Sometimes when you use weird things as the crust, it kind of eliminates the flavor and just tastes like oil. I'm actually still tasting Pringles, which I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, actually. But I mean, I think there's a big question here. Is it a D or a C? Oh, there's no way this is a C. Oh, I'm going C tier just because you said that. No, no, good. I love you, Bayashi, but this is D tier. I love you so much, Bayashi. I really do. I freaking love you. We love you so much. You're probably straight-up probably one of the nicest guys I've ever met, but this chicken's D tier. It is time for Jamie Oliver teaching us how to cook fried chicken, a.k.a. his JFC, Jamie's fried chicken. Comes in three parts, ladies and gents. We've got the brining. We've got buttermilking and flouring. Okay, we are starting off with a very interesting technique. Typically, when you brine fried chicken, it just goes into buttermilk. He's taking this a step further and putting it in an actual saltwater brine. Buttermilk, you can get it in all the supermarkets. It's kind of like a liquid yogurt, and it's going to help to flavor and tenderize this chicken. Okay, now making our dredge, only using all-purpose flour, and keeping the seasonings relatively simple. It's hard to see exactly, but it doesn't seem like he's really pushing in a lot of that flour mixture. It's like, seems to be lightly breaded, but not like heavily coated. It looks nice and golden and gorgeous. After about five minutes, put it in the tray. Do the same with the thighs. Whack this in the oven now at 170 degrees Celsius. I thought he was going to serve us medium-rare chicken, only five minutes in the oil to initially flash fry. But fortunately, he is finishing it in the oven. I mean, it looks pretty crispy. I'm not going to say that is the strongest crust we've seen today on the chicken. And this did take an absurd amount of work to get to this point. The only question is, is it worth it? Step one, we actually need to score our chicken. Next up, we'll be needing his flavorful saltwater brine. Getting all our chicken pieces incorporated. And it's into the fridge overnight. So I said to the guy, I said, that's too much fried chicken. That's a lot of fried chicken. Sometimes you just need a cucumber break. And just like that, brine number one is complete. So we'll add our chicken to the bag, covering with buttermilk. And it's back in the fridge for another eight hours. And we'll assemble our dredge. To the flour, we'll add some baking powder, smoked paprika, cayenne for a kick, some onion, garlic, salt, and pepper. And with our chicken now finally fully brined, we'll get it in the flour. What I'll say at this point is this chicken feels a lot more firm than regular fresh chicken that hasn't been brined. We'll see what that means for the final product. Just kind of mixing that all up, getting it all incorporated. And finally, we go into our 375 degree oil. And after just five minutes, this color is already looking beautiful. Chicken goes onto a platter, just like Jamie will finish with some time. And it's into the oven to come up to temp. And finally, our Jamie Oliver JFC is ready to go. Now, the first problem I notice is that the bottom of each piece of chicken is extremely soggy. Definitely would have been fixed if we cooked all these on a rack. With all that steam being trapped, this is no bueno. However, the top part does appear pretty nice and crispy. Definitely not our most crispy today. But of course, what matters most is how it tastes. I realized growing up I used to get Tyler Florence and Jamie Oliver flip-flopped. I have no clue who Tyler Lawrence is. Very flavorful, but it kind of has that rubbery, almost overly salted texture and flavor. I like the flavor of the breading though. It's really nice, but it's a bit soggy. The oven should have helped dry it out. Oh, really? I actually think it might be because it's brined, it's releasing a lot more moisture. But I could be wrong. I do like the flavor of the breading, but because it's soggy, I'm just not getting a tasty bite right now. It's good at the initial, like, onset bite. For one bite, it's not bad. Besides the sogginess factor. But then once you really bite into it, literally the inside of this thigh is very salty. I hate to do it to my boy Jamie, but I think this is D-tier fried chicken. I'm gonna give it a C. I think it's better than a D. It's gonna be a D for me. Sadly, Jamie's JFC is getting D-tier. If there is one man on this earth who knows fried chicken, trust me, it is this guy right here. Okay, so we're starting out here with what looks like some hot sauce and a super flavorful rub. You wanna get in every crevice, every crack. He is going very, very, very heavy on that seasoning. Okay, now it's time for the best part. Now, we're about ready to baptize that chicken. Better believe I'm gonna try and get my own chicken contraption just like this. I- I wanna baptize chicken. I don't know if there's anything more satisfying looking than cooking about a hundred chickens worth of chicken wings. That is awesome. Look, we have cooked a lot of chicken today. That right there straight up looks the best. I think it's time we get to cooking. And this one starts with a whole bunch of chicken. We'll hit it with the hot sauce. Now, just going heavy with the seasoning. And we'll just mix it all up. And we'll let it marinate. In the meantime, we'll season up our flour. And for the seasoning, we of course got the exact same stuff he used. This stuff looks so insanely flavorful. Getting that all mixed up. Now, it's time we go in with the chicken. Covering in that beautiful seasoned flour. As they say, gotta get it in every crevice and every crack, baby. You wanna get in every crevice, every crack. It's time to fry. And now, we'll just load up our chicken. This is gonna be good. Making sure that they're all nicely separated for a beautiful even fry. And now, we baptize that chicken. Now, we're about ready to baptize that chicken. Oh, yeah. That looks awesome. Hoo-wee. That looks good. And just take a look at that fried chicken. Whoo. Now, this is looking unbelievable. I mean, we have seen some great fried chicken today, but the color on this is looking hard to beat. This was some of the most basic fried chicken of the day. There was no buttermilk, super simple. But the texture on this chicken, I can't believe how good it looks. Clearly, this guy knows what he's doing when it comes to fried chicken. In front of me, we have some baptized chicken. Wow. We didn't do anything crazy to this fried chicken. I mean, we marinated it for a little bit. We covered it in flour. There was no extra starches, no crazy dips and dashes and doodahs. Fried it at 350, and the result is unreal. It's so much different than cooking it in a pan. I don't understand it. But it tastes awesome. I love rotisserie chicken. And this tastes like a fried rotisserie chicken. The flavor, it's so good. That rub is extremely herbal. This is the perfect level of crunchiness for fried chicken. It's like a light, airy crisp. It reminds me of Nick's fried chicken. This is blowing my mind. Like, I don't want to just throw around S's, but I want to say this should be an S. It's way better than I was expecting for such a basic chicken. I'm going A. I think I got to go A. What it means is we're ending the day on a high note. It's going to be A tier. Well, there it is, guys. Our final ranking looks like this. Thanks for watching, and we'll see you next time.