Korean Fried Chicken - Colonel Sanders Battles the Orient

Koreans have a habit of taking U.S. inventions and making them better. Consider television – does anyone actually buy Philips over Samsung these days? Or the internet – Korean connections are now four times faster than those in America, not to mention cheaper.

But if there’s one invention I never imagined another country improving upon, it’s fried chicken.

I grew up in the deep south, but I didn’t develop a psychological attachment to fried chicken until I was a junior in college - that’s when I moved into an apartment in the same building as a Royal Farms.  It didn’t take long for Ro Fo chicken – soaked luxuriantly in buttermilk, rolled in a thick cocoon of spices and breadcrumbs and deep-fried – to become an important part of my daily routine. Oh, and Ro Fo's early morning grease fires that frequently required me to bolt for my life out of the building in nothing but my underpants? A most reasonable tradeoff.

But, recently, I heard of a new kind of fried chicken made in Korea that's supposedly even tastier – and actually sort of healthy.  Over the past 20 years, fried chicken has become a popular bar food in Seoul, and, in 2007, Korean entrepreneurs first marketed their version to American palates at a place in New York called Bon Chon.

As much as I love Korean food, I approached their recipe (which I found on the bitten word, a cool blog where they cook recipes found in food magazines) for fried chicken with a touch of good ole U.S. chauvinism.  Did Colonel Sanders really have any reason to worry about Colonel Kim?  Kicking our butts when it comes to cathode ray tubes and open networks is all well and good, but, capital cities and Kia SUVs aside, do Koreans have the soul to beat us at fried chicken?

A couple of my New York friends and former Royal Farms dining companions, Ed and Dave, seemed to validate my skepticism.  Ed said he knew Bon Chon had some die-hard fans, but his own description was lukewarm: "pretty tasty."  Dave couldn't remember if he'd had them or not, and complained that he was aging too rapidly. 

My doubts began to fade, though, as I shopped for ingredients at the Rockville H Mart and imagined gochujang, the fantastic Korean chili paste, mixed with sesame oil, honey, vinegar and soy sauce, and poured generously over some extra crispy chicken.
 
See how my Korean Fried Chicken turned out after the jump!
 
 
 
  Ingredients that go into the sauce ... the one in between the honey and sesame oil is gochujang

 
Back home, I combined the gochujang with the other ingredients to make the sauce.  Next, I briefly dipped a few chicken wings in a thinned out mixture of flour, cornstarch, and water - a big departure from the goupy batter that's used in rural Southern renditions. 
 
 

Then I heated a few cups of olive oil to 350 degrees and dunked the wings like I was the deep-fry jockey in a fast food kitchen.
 

This is what 350 degrees looks like on my excellent food thermometer

 
 

 
Not so fast.  
 
Unlike Colonel Sanders, Koreans fry their chickens in two separate stages.  At first, you cook the meat only until it turns golden - about eight minutes.  Remove your chicken pieces from the oil and let them drain and cool for a couple of minutes.  This slows down the cooking process, letting the meat cook through before the crust burns. 
 
After the FIRST round of frying

 
Okay, now it was time for round two - I returned the chicken to the oil and fried for another eight minutes.  Doing so boils the fat out of the skin, resulting in a thinner, healthier, less soggy crust.
 

 
 
After the SECOND round of frying

 
I poured on some of the gochujang sauce and was ready for my first bite.
 
 

 
The crunch of the crust was like thunder.  Seriously, there was actually a bad storm that night, and none of nature's fury compared to the roar of my teeth tearing this skin asunder.  Underneath, though, the chicken was delicate and moist.
 
Now, to that dynamic texture, add the comforting taste of the flour and cornstarch mixed together with the spicy sweetness of the gochujang sauce.
 
 

 
And, whereas Americans typically balance fried chicken with a side of mayonnaise-heavy coleslaw, Koreans enjoy it with ultra-light, pickled radish - the perfect palate soother to counter spicy jolts from the gochujang.
 
This chicken thrashes my sentimental favorite, Ro Fo, and any other fried chicken I've had.  The flavor is more complex, the finish cleaner.  Sorry Colonel Sanders.  You had a nice run, but I prefer finger lickin' fantastic.
 
As I took my last bite, I felt two strong urges.  One, the immediate need for consecutive viewings of Rocky IV and Gung Ho to patch up my wounded patriotism.  Two, I must travel to the closest Bon Chon franchise - located only a half-hour away in Annandale, Virginia - to see how my down-home Seoul cooking stacks up.