Double Down Throwdown: Our Homemade Version Takes on KFC's

Posted by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, April 13, 2010 at 3:45 PM

“Never in my life did I ever expect to ingest something called 'The Colonel's Special Sauce,' much less spend a morning trying to recreate it.”

KFC's Double Down Sandwich. [Photographs: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt]

By now, everyone knows what this is, right? It's the new Double Down “sandwich” from KFC. Two slices of bacon, two slices of cheese, and a big squirt of the “Colonel's Special Sauce” sandwiched between two deep-fried chicken cutlets in lieu of bread. Most people online seem to be in agreement, with Sam Sifton leading the charge: This thing is gross.

Most of the panty-twisting revolves around its nutritional qualities. But is it really that bad for you? After all, conceptually and nutritionally, it's no different than a Chicken Cordon Bleu, right? Is there no room in our diet for fried chicken or bacon?

To me, the grossness of this sandwich is the same as what's gross about all fast food: convenience and quality. It's simply too easy to walk up to a window, hand over five bucks, and get 600 industrially produced calories prepared by a worker who couldn't care less.

As a culinary concept, on the other hand, chicken, bacon, and cheese sounds pretty good to me. So what if I were to recreate the Double Down with time and care using quality ingredients? How would it compare to the original? Find out, after the jump.

This morning, we did just that (yes, I was up frying chicken before 8 a.m.). Here are the results.

The Chicken

KFC's Chicken cutlets are not bad as far as fast food goes. They are clearly made from whole (albeit grisly and slightly dry) pieces of chicken breast, not ground and formed chicken meal. The problem is the crust. In the two sandwiches I had, it lacked crispness except around the very edges. It also seemed to be adhered to the breast with some sort of industrial-strength food glue. Finally, while the Colonel is proud of his secret 11-herb-and-spice blend, it overwhelms not just the chicken but the bacon, sauce, and melted cheese, as well—not a minor feat!

To improve matters, I started with good, air-chilled chicken breasts, which I split in half horizontally into cutlets and soaked overnight in buttermilk seasoned with black pepper, fresh garlic, and paprika in order to help tenderize and flavor the meat. I also added plenty of salt to the mix, turning the buttermilk into a brine, helping the chicken breast pieces retain more moisture as they cooked, ensuring juiciness.

Standard fried chicken breading will have you drop the buttermilk-soaked pieces into seasoned flour. To get a bit of extra crispness, I worked a bit of extra buttermilk into the flour mixture with my fingertips before adding the chicken. This creates little crisp nubs that stick to the exterior of the chicken for extra crunch. I tried frying in lard and shortening, but they proved too heavy, leaving an offputting waxy coating on your tongue. Peanut oil fared much better.

Since the chicken breast cutlets are so thin, I didn't even need to break out the deep fryer—they stayed submerged just fine in a 12-inch skillet, making cleanup much more appealing.

I once had a chef who used to yell at cooks, “I don't care if you're cooking fried dogs**t. If it comes out of the fryer, you salt it the second it comes out!” He's right: Salt sticks much better when the food's still hot and slightly greasy.

The Bacon

KFC's bacon was by far the most disappointing part of the sandwich. After digging through the cheese-mayo mixture with a pair of tweezers, I was finally able to locate the two floppy, anemic slices. Even when tasting them on their own, it was tough to discern any particular pork flavor. All I got was a vague hit of chemical smoke. Blugh.

In order to stand up to the flavor of the chicken, I decided to go with thick-cut applewood-smoked bacon. My normal go-to method is to lay the strips out on a sheet tray in the oven, but it makes collecting excess fat a little more difficult, and I had definite plans for that bacon fat. Instead, I cooked the bacon (two full slices cut in half per sandwich, plus three extra for my wife*) in the skillet, reserving the fat to combine with my chicken-frying oil, rendering the chicken extra-crisp and flavorful.

The Cheese

KFC claims to use a slice of Monterey Jack and a slice of pepper Jack. Though I did see vague flecks of green and red in the pepper Jack, I honestly could taste no difference between the two slices. Not only that, but by the time the chicken had cooled sufficiently to eat, the cheese had solidified into a solid plastic sheath. Not for me, thank you.

Instead of going with slices, I figured I'd get better, more even coverage by applying a layer of grated pepper Jack directly to the fried chicken and melting it with a brief stay in the oven. I didn't even both with two different cheese. After all, pepper Jack is just Monterey Jack with hot peppers added to it. Did the chefs at KFC really decide that two full slices of pepper Jack was just too spicy? Really?

The Sauce

Never in my life did I ever expect to ingest something called “The Colonel's Special Sauce,” much less spend a morning trying to recreate it. Unlike the sweet and sour McDonald's Special Sauce, the Colonel's got a spicier background. I did ask the employee at KFC what kind of sauce it was. His response: “Special,” along with a smug “look-at-that-joke-I-just-made” smile on his face.

Clever. Very clever.

In the end, I went with a mix of mayo, ketchup, fresh garlic, paprika, and a dash of Frank's Red Hot sauce. Exactly the same? No, but trust me—you don't want your sauce to taste exactly the same as the Colonel's.

Assembly

There's not much to the assembly. I cooked the bacon, fried the chicken, melted the cheese, slathered the sauce, then put it all together. Was it better than the original? How could it not be?

The main advantages were that in the original, everything kind of melts into one salty, spicy, mealy bite, whereas with the homemade version, all the elements are of a high enough quality that they remain distinct, while still managing to come across as a harmonious whole. Aside from the absurd portion size, I'd happily make this for myself a couple of times a year.

And as luck would have it, I think I've discovered a portion-size solution as well: The Double Down Junior.

Made from the tenderloins that I removed from the chicken breasts before cooking, each Double Down Junior is just the right size for a single strip of bacon, packs all of the flavor and excesses of its bigger brother, but can be consumed in two single bites. How's that for fast food?

So what about you? If you could make or buy a higher quality version of this sandwich, would you be more likely to try it?

* Who would leave me if I ever cooked bacon without making extra for her.

About the author: After graduating from MIT, J. Kenji Lopez-Alt spent many years as a chef, recipe developer, writer, and editor in Boston. He now lives in New York with his wife, where he runs a private chef business, KA Cuisine, and co-writes the blog GoodEater.org about sustainable food enjoyment. Become a fan of The Food Lab on Facebook for play-by-plays on future kitchen tests and recipe experiments.

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Grilling: Chicken Fajitas

Posted by Joshua Bousel, April 30, 2010 at 8:00 PM

[Photographs: Joshua Bousel]

It was two years ago when I first started posting here—right before my top eating holiday, Cinco de Mayo—and shared one of my all-time favorite grilling recipes for skirt steak fajitas. I can't even count how many more times I've made those since then, being such a quick and easy meal that packs an insanely good combination of flavors. It's in my regular rotation.
Although I contend that skirt steak = fajitas, over 100 recipe posts forces some give, and I'm evolving to the next generation in my fajita diet—chicken.

Keeping with the quick and easy part, I threw together a marinade with some standard standard Tex-Mex ingredients I had on hand and tossed in a few chicken breasts pounded to a half-inch thick. Being heavy on lime juice, this had to be a fast marinade, so as soon as I had a fire going, I took the chicken to the grill over high heat until browned and cooked through. Sliced up and piled in a flour tortilla with sauteed peppers, onions, and a little sour cream, it was time to dive in.

A short half hour marinade packed the breasts with the unmistakable flavors of lime and cilantro, and the grill gave it a nice slight-crisp crust that held the sugar and cumin portion. Quick, easy, and full of flavor, these fajitas were delivering—to the full extent of skirt steak, not totally, but enough to take a high position on any Cinco de Mayo menu.

Chicken Fajitas

Ingredients

For the marinade:
1/3 cup coarsely chopped fresh cilantro
1/4 cup lime juice
3 cloves minced garlic
5 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon dark brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, pounded to 1/2-in thick

For the vegetables:
1 large red bell pepper, cut into 1/4-inch strips
1 large green bell pepper, cut into 1/4-inch strips
1 large white onion, cut into 1/4-inch strips
Olive oil
Kosher salt

Sour cream
Flour tortillas

Procedure

1. In a small bowl, mix together all of the ingredients for the marinade. Place the chicken breasts in a large Ziplock bag and pour marinade all over. Seal the bag, removing as much air as possible and allow to marinate for 30 minutes in the refrigerator.

2. Light one chimney full of charcoal. When all the charcoal is lit and covered with gray ash, pour out and spread the coals evenly over the charcoal grate. Remove the chicken from the marinade and cook over high heat until browned on both sides and cooked through, about three to five minutes per side. Remove the from the grill and allow to rest five to ten minutes. Slice into 1/2 inch strips.

3. While the chicken is resting, toss the peppers and onion with a little olive oil and a pinch of salt. Place a cast iron skillet directly on the hot coals in the grill, and when heated, add in the peppers and onions. Continue to cook, stirring frequently, until they are soft and nicely browned, about 5 to 10 minutes.

4. Heat the tortillas on the grill or in the oven until soft. Assemble fajitas with the vegetables, chicken, and a dollop of sour cream.

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U.S. President Barack Obama hugs Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva at the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington April 12, 2010. Obama opened a 47-nation summit dedicated to keeping nuclear arms from terrorists and planned to seek momentum in his push for a new round of sanctions on Iran.

REUTERS/Jason Reed (UNITED STATES - Tags: POLITICS MILITARY)

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And this time we have blogs, we have Twitter, we have newspapers all online. This is the political sofa nerd's election. For many years, I covered elections as a journalist and the large secret – when you're covering it, you never know what is going on. John Prescott smacks someone in the face: you hear about it on the late-night news because you have been canvassing with the Liberal Democrat candidate in Watford. Poll shows surprise Labour lead? You are in a field somewhere, interviewing a farmer. Ah, happy days… but not exactly up-to-the-minute days. To really be there, you have to stay at home. And that is what I have been planning for months – couch in place, television tuned, radio on the windowsill. A small table to one side to place the laptop and the remote controls, perhaps a pad of paper and a pen? Bliss.

If anybody asked me to sign up for anything in April, I have said, “I can't”. I can't have builders then, I can't hand in essays, I can't go on holiday, I cannot come and give a presentation. Because it's the election. When the dentist's receptionist in mid-March proposed 7 May for a dental appointment for my daughter I looked at her and said, “May 7th? But that's the day after the election”.

She looked at me as if I was slightly demented. But in my mind I was watching (and I will be watching) the comings and goings in Downing Street – Mr Cameron on his way to the Palace, perhaps, or Nick Clegg cabaling with Mr Brown.

I see that three times as many people are searching for Gordon Brown on Google this day as for David Cameron, and three times as many for Cameron as for Clegg. I see that Clegg just forgot to kiss a baby in Northampton and its granny protested. I see that it's sunny in Birmingham.

There may never be a better time to be a political sofa nerd. Never again will we have as many outlets to obsess over, or as many paths to stalk. In every general election that follows this one, for a start, the newspapers are likely to have faded away behind paywalls – no more comparing the thoughts of Simon Heffer and Simon Carr, or checking the Telegraph's opinion on the effect of SamCam. But then, who needs them? Now we have Philip Cowley's expert blog from Nottingham University, we have UKpollingreport, we have Conservative Home.

So switch off the phone and turn on the telly, and bring on the debates. Bring on the manifestos. Bring on the press conferences. Bring on the analysis, in all its multi-faceted, multimedia, slightly insane, obsessive glory. Bring on John Prescott's fist. If not his fist, I'll settle for his tweets. This time, ah, this time, I shall be there to see it all.

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IGF 2008 finalist Noitu Love 2: Devolution is a 2D action game notable for having an extremely odd control system that combines keyboard-based movement with mouse gestures. It's now being ported to WiiWare, no doubt with Wii motion controls adding an extra layer of oddness to the run-and-gun's control scheme.

The port is being developed by Golgoth Studio, the French studio behind the HD remakes of Toki (which was without a publisher last time we heard) and Joe and Mac. It asked the community for retro remake ideas when it received its WiiWare developer credentials. Whoever is responsible for this idea, the result is another interesting indie game on WiiWare. If you'd like to try it now, there is a demo of the PC version on original developer Konjak's site.

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It's like Anti Federalist said: Nobody's listening anymore…like, at all. Heck, I am sympathetic to the truther movement, but I don't even bother to listen anymore!

A lot of it has to do with marketing. Years ago, truthers as a group tended to evangelize heavily - obnoxiously - and it was also difficult to separate the rational truthers from the irrational ones. Obviously, the media deliberately made that harder by coming up with smears and rebuttal campaigns that only addressed the weakest truther claims, etc. From what I remember, Popular Mechanics literally pulled some claims right out of their asses (such as "pull it" referring to apparently nonexistent firefighters in WTC7, and WTC7 having fuel lines that would explain the collapse…but in reality, I recall they were empty anyway or something?), but for most people, the Popular Mechanics deal was the end of the truther issue for them. As far as the twin towers go, some scientists made claims about thermite and/or thermate, others rebutted them, and I guess there were probably strings of counter-rebuttals and such, but I never heard any mention of a consensus or an uncontested "final word" that would conclusively prove the presence of explosives. Anyway, I think most people eventually just fatigued of all the back and forth bullshit and went back to sleep, because the whole issue had become too cloudy for the average person with limited time to make any sense out of.

Personally, I know I gave up on trying to keep track of all of it. I ended up deciding that it's almost beside the point, given my view that the government's reaction was unjustified no matter what actually happened. For the record, even though I have no strong opinion on how it was carried out, all of the strange coincidences involved make me lean strongly towards the notion that Cheney and a few other well-placed agents had advance knowledge and at least deliberately let it happen. (If I had to speculate about the "how" in a MIHOP scenario, my best guess would include real-live terrorists that were deliberately radicalized by intelligence agents.)

So, has the truther movement finally come to some sort of consensus about the various issues? Obviously nobody's going to be able to provide a comprehensive narrative or anything, but for instance, is there a single, easily accessible document with an iron-clad case about nano-thermite that addresses all previous rebuttals and has survived for a long time without its own plausible rebuttal? Is there a single up-to-date, impeccable document presenting that case and others (WTC7, Pentagon, etc.) in an easily accessible format, which addresses previous rebuttals and which nobody has been able to plausibly contest a single word of? Importantly, is it all self-consistent? If so, then maybe it would be wise for the truther movement to use their "one last chance" with all of the people still willing to listen. I would definitely like to take a look, because I've been waiting forever for a single modern source of truther information where I will not have to reconcile contradictory claims and/or cross-reference every sentence with other references to determine what claims are outdated/disproven/etc.

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Guest Passes let you share your photos that aren't public. Anyone can see your public photos anytime, whether they're a Flickr member or not. But! If you want to share photos marked as friends, family or private, use a Guest Pass. If you're sharing photos from a set, you can create a Guest Pass that includes any of your photos marked as friends, family, or private. If you're sharing your entire photostream, you can create a Guest Pass that includes photos marked as friends or family (but not your private photos). Learn more about Guest Passes!

Today I feel like blogging about my favourite thing to do – taking loads and loads of photos!

I know I’m a camwhore, but I just love taking photos of everything I love. I’m not much of a photographer and I don’t think I could call myself one, but I aspire to take wonderful photos of my kiddos (from class), my coaches, my family members, my friends and everything we do together! I am a memory keeper and I’ve been trying of late to take photos with more thought instead of just spamming (but I need so much more practice)!

I’ve just got myself a second hand Canon 450D with a 75mm – 300mm telephoto lens and I’ve been having a shitload of fun! I’m saving up for a 50mm f1.8 now! I’m so glad I’m working at the pools on weekends so I had a fun time testing out my new toy (and on some of my favourite people too – kiddos! HAHA!!!)!

Lemme just share some of my photography heroes (OR in some cases heroines):

Jermy
He has always been taking awesome interesting photos in his mind, out of his mind, on his camera, everywhere since I’ve known him so long ago!

Jojo
I constantly cyberstalk her to see the photos she takes for her Project 52 – which are simply too beautiful really, love love her photos! Her lomo photos are so stunning and after she got herself her Nikon DSLR she’s been posting so many wonderful photographs of her friends, dog, birthday… Look forward to her updates everytime!

Zhang Jingna
She is so damn young and talented!! Drools!

Lara Jade
Can you please tell me how can she be so drop dead model gorgeous, take such incredible self portraits and shoot even more awesome (unbelievably dreamy) shots! Tian ah! I love her seriously! And you know she’s so young as well! If I’m not wrong she’s only 20! Goodness! MY HEROINE!!!

Ra1nforest
I am the ultimate cyber stalker. Hahaha. His couple portraits are so sweet. I always feel so much hope when I stalk his livejournal! HAHA!

Ok I should stop being such a stalker! But have fun looking at their photos! Incredible stuff! I love!

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