My Secret Blend of Herbs and Spices
Ditch the Colonel for Delicious and Improved KFC - Korean Fried Chicken
The Inspiration
Megan and I took a weeklong trip up to Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada over Memorial Day weekend. It is not an exaggeration to say it was one of the best week’s of my life. We hadn’t taken a trip just the two of us since our Europe trip in the summer of 2022. We have done loads of wonderful traveling since then, but we were overdue for a trip of our own.
Before I dive into the food we ate on the trip, I want to share a bit about the trip as a whole. Megan became enamored with Banff in 2020 through a combination of YouTube Yoga background shots and TikTok itinerary videos. She made it very clear that this was going to be the year we made the trip happen. We planned out the basic transportation and lodging but did little beyond that. We wanted to get there and follow whatever piqued our interest. We found a great deal on a bundle that included an e-bike rental, canoe rental, gondola ride, and hot springs ticket that we could spread out over our trip.
To keep myself in check, we alternated high activity days with relaxation days. A few years ago on our trip to Yosemite, I infamously turned a nice day of hiking into an 18 hour day by always wanting to do one more hike, and then after a certain point you might as well stay for sunset, right? That mindset over the course of an entire week would have left us completely wrecked, especially as we both dealt with nagging knee and hip ailments. It ended up being the perfect approach for the week. We got to see many beautiful locations and do some incredible hikes, but we also spent time reading by the lake and took an afternoon for a spa day.
The national park is an amazing mix of mountains like the Swiss Alps with a central town like Bar Harbor, Maine. We went in between seasons, as ski season winds down towards the end of April and the summer season begins in June. This seemingly kept the crowds down as we had no issues with traffic or overcrowding at any of our spots. This off season even meant that one of the main roadways was closed to cars to allow for cycling and roller skiing. We took our e-bike rentals on a loop around the golf course before doing a nice ride along this roadway with our fellow cyclists.
Below are a few of my favorite pictures from the trip, and then I’ll jump into the food we ate.
This trip wasn’t nearly as food focused as our Europe trip. My expectations for the food low were low coming in. I could happily eat trail mix and peanut butter banana sandwiches for every meal, but Megan forced us to be a bit more adventurous than that. We devised a nice system where we generally got two quick and cheap meals from the grocery store, and then a nice meal for dinner. This helped keep costs down while allowing us to explore some really fun and tasty restaurants around Banff.
On our travel day, I thought we should sample the national dish of Canada, poutine, while in Calgary. Much to my amusement, the universal recommendation for the best poutine was found at Costco. If they sold that basket of fries, gravy, and cheese curds for $5 down the street at my local Costco, it would quickly become a huge issue. The next night we got pho from Peak Cafe. It didn’t quite compare to the pho we get from Southern California’s Little Saigon, but it still hit the spot. The third night we got Korean street food from a mini chain called Hankki. This is the subject of the recreation, so I’ll return to that soon.
On the Saturday, we did our bike in the morning and then stuffed ourselves at an Indian lunch buffet so thoroughly we didn’t even need dinner after our afternoon hike. Sunday we went to Bluebird Steakhouse for their fondue happy hour. We were already mentally prepared to order fondue for two, so when we found out that one fondue was sufficient for two people, adding on a steak was practically free. Megan made fun of me the rest of the night for how much I enjoyed the steak, but other than that it was a perfect meal. On Monday, we explored the town our hotel was in and found a great happy hour deal at Bridgette Bar in Canmore. We had half price pizza and drinks and learned that a 0.5% NA beer is the perfect amount of alcohol to get Megan pleasantly tipsy.
For our final night, Megan booked us a meal at Sky Bistro, a restaurant situated on top of Sulphur Mountain. We took the gondola up to the observation deck and had our fanciest meal of the trip. I had a delicious duck breast and Megan had an incredible braised short rib. I would have attempted to recreate that short rib had it not already been pre-created with a recipe passed down from Megan’s mom. The braised short rib is the best thing Megan makes and this would be a very boring newsletter if the recreation section was just “I followed Megan’s recipe. It was delicious.” So despite that being objectively the best thing we ate on the trip, I wanted to recreate a surprising favorite, our meal at Hankki.
Hankki is a chain of Korean street food restaurants in the Calgary area. For the Banff location, they split the restaurant into two halves. The left side serves rice bowls and fried chicken, while the right side serves desserts and boba. The rice bowl, which I ordered, is akin to a Korean Chipotle. It makes a ton of sense as a fast casual offering. The rice and meat is prepared throughout the day while different toppings and pickles can be prepared ahead of time. The portion was generous and at $11 CAD or $8 USD the price couldn’t be beat in the town of Banff.
Megan ordered the wings and fries. The wings had the shatteringly crisp exterior I have come to expect from Korean fried chicken and were tossed in a galbi sauce. Galbi is a marinated short rib often found at Korean barbecue restaurants. It has a sweet and savory profile that is not spicy. Korean fried chicken typically has a spicy gochujang sauce, so the American comparison for the galbi sauce would be like a BBQ sauce instead of a buffalo wing sauce.
The fries were sufficiently fluffy for my liking with a nice, crisp exterior. They were finished with a honey butter sauce which was interesting, but not good enough to justify pouring butter and honey on potatoes straight out of the fryer. So for the recreation, I’m really just looking to create a high quality french fry.
The Recreation
For this recreation, I’ll be making the wings and fries. This was partially an excuse to have Megan’s old roommate Ceci over, who apparently had eagerly been awaiting the day for my Korean fried chicken ever since I made it for a Super Bowl party a few years ago. I’ve made Korean fried chicken a few times, but this sauce is a new endeavor. And I don’t think I’ve ever tried to make proper French fries at home; I always make my fries in the oven where it is much easier. But I figured if I already have the deep frying process set up for the wings it would be fun to try to make some fries. Spoiler alert: they ended up being the star of the show.
It will come as no surprise to regular readers that these recipes are courtesy of Kenji Lopez-Alt at Serious Eats. I wanted to try to find a recipe somewhere else at least for the French fry, but how could I resist 3,000 words on the science of French fries. I’ll start with the chicken, as I prepped that first.
For the chicken, I used flats and drumsticks from the party wing pack from Costco along with a few thighs I had in the fridge. The night before, I combined salt, cornstarch, and baking powder as a dry brine for the chicken. I tossed the chicken with the mixture and left them in the fridge on a wire rack overnight. The salt and corn starch in the mixture help draw moisture out from the wings, helping them develop a crispy skin. The baking powder raises the pH of the surface, allowing the wings to brown more easily without altering the taste of the wing.
The next day, I prepared the batter. The batter has an unexpected secret ingredient: vodka. To achieve maximum crispiness, the batter must be thin and light. Using just flour and water is insufficient; the coating is too dense. The density comes from the development of gluten, the protein that gives bread its structure. Gluten cannot develop in alcohol, hence the inclusion of vodka. It allows for the introduction of more liquid to get the right consistency while minimizing the gluten formation. It is an ingenious trick that is also found in Kenji’s pie dough recipe for the same reason. And it does not alter the taste at all as most of the alcohol ends up evaporating.
If you’re following Kenji’s recipe yourself, one note on the batter is that I find the recipe’s measurements result in a batter that is way too thin. I usually end up doubling the amount of flour and cornstarch, but do so by adding small amounts in roughly equal quantities of the two until the batter falls off the whisk in ribbons that instantly disappear. For this batch, I think I added a little bit too much flour and cornstarch and got a thicker batter than desired, but it wasn’t too noticeable in the final product.
I used my wok as the deep frying vessel for both projects. It is plenty deep while able to manipulate the temperature relatively quickly. Temperature control is the hardest part of at-home deep frying for me. First you have to take the oil to the desired temperature, which in this case was 350ºF. After adding the wings, the temperature drops quite dramatically. It is then a delicate game of trying to raise the temperature of the oil back up to 350º without sending it skyrocketing past. Making matters slightly more complicated is the fact that my meat thermometer, while exceptional for temping meats, takes a while to acclimate to the temperature of the oil. I’m sure that with practice I could figure out the ideal dial setting system on my stovetop for deep frying. Fortunately for my overall health, this is not a skill I plan on practicing frequently enough to perfect.
After frying the battered wings for approximately 8 minutes, it is time to hit them with a pinch of salt before tossing them in one of the two sauces I prepared. I prepared a galbi sauce in addition to the more traditional gochujang sauce. For the galbi sauce, my main criteria was that it had to include Asian pear. Galbi sauce isn’t really a thing, so I adapted a marinade into a sauce. To do this, I boiled the marinade over the stovetop and added a cornstarch and water slurry. The slurry was roughy equal parts water and cornstarch, and was added into to the marinade while it was cooking to thicken it into a sauce. The galbi sauce was pretty good but too salty. I think coming from a marinade, the extra flavor is needed to try to infiltrate the meat. As a sauce, the saltiness was a bit overpowering. Next time, I would halve the amount of soy sauce used.
The gochujang sauce is the sauce I have previously with these swings. It combines gochujang, which is a sweet and spicy fermented chili paste common in Korean cooking, with garlic, ginger, brown sugar, soy sauce, vinegar, and sesame oil. The sauce hits all the major taste sensations of salty, sweet, spicy, and umami. Missing is bitter, but that’s for the best as I generally don’t like bitter flavors.
To serve, I tossed the wings in one of the two sauces and finished with some green onions. For the galbi wings, I also added some roasted peanuts, as that is how they were served at Hankki. Both flavors of wings were delicious. Korean fried chicken is the best and only way to eat fried chicken
Now for the moment you’ve all (or at least Emma) have been waiting for: the French fries. The process started the morning of the dinner, but could be done further ahead of time. First I peeled the russet potatoes and sliced them into prisms measuring between 1/4 inch and 1/2 inch on each side. I kept the sliced potatoes in a large bowl of water to prevent browning while I worked on the remaining potatoes.
The next step is the type of scientific genius that keeps me coming back to Kenji. The fries are placed in a pot of boiling water mixed with a bit of vinegar. The initial water bath rinses off sugars to prevent the fries from browning too quickly and activates an enzyme called PME. PME helps the potato retain its structure throughout the frying process. PME works best at 170ºF. Any higher than that and the enzyme looses all effectiveness and the potatoes begin to fall apart as pectin breaks down.
Keen observers may notice that water boils at a higher temperature than 170ºF, 212ºF to be exact. That is the reason for the splash of vinegar. The idea originated with the logic behind using Granny Smith apples for apple pie instead of Red Delicious apples. The tartness in a Granny Smith apple comes from its higher acid content. The higher acid content slows down the process of pectin breakdown. This helps the apple keep its structure in a pie. By adding vinegar to the boiling water, the breakdown of pectin in the potato is slowed, helping the potato retain its structure.
After the initial boil, the fries are dunked into hot oil for a quick initial fry. By the third batch, I had figured out how to do this without burning myself. I used a pasta basket to lower the fries into the oil and carefully slide them out so as not to cause the oil to spatter. After this, the fries were placed in the freezer until ready for a second, more thorough fry. The reasoning for this double frying and freezing is complicated, but I’ll try my best to explain. The first fry expels the moisture in the exterior of the fry. This helps rearrange the starch molecules into a thicker exterior. The freezing step helps rearrange the remaining moisture into crystal structures. On the second fry, these crystals are easier to evaporate, resulting in a better overall fry.
The results were truly astounding. I consider myself a French fry connoisseur, with a palette achieved through years of dedication to the art of the French fry. On one end of the French fry spectrum, there exists In-n-Out. Sadly, soggy, and flavorless, these fries require gimmicks like cheese and onions or requesting a specific doneness. On the other end of the spectrum exist these fries. They were crispy, fluffy, salty, and potatoey. They were everything I want in a French fry. Behold, in all their glory:
Wrapping Up
This was another delightful evening of cooking for our friends. We had Ceci over along with my pickleball partner Zack. Zack is a huge fan of Korean culture, plus I owed him dinner for signing me up for a golf tournament while I was on the flight back from Banff. The night was a lovely way to commemorate an immensely special trip to one of the most beautiful places in this world.
Next month, for the first time I’ll be venturing without my trusty guide Kenji as I attempt to recreate a dessert from our local Taiwanese restaurant. Until then, thanks for reading, and please subscribe using the button below!
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