Sandwich expert Max Halley thanks chef Carl Clarke for bringing the fried chicken element to this dish.
“As much as I would like to consider the chicken element of this sandwich as my own, I can't, because it's not mine, it's Carl's and it's THE BEST,” he says.
“If you want to make this easier, do the easy parts, then buy some Kyivs chicken instead of frying the chicken and stick one of them in instead (cooked, obviously). But be careful with boiling butter and take care of that shirt.”
Coronation Fried Chicken Sandwich
Brands: 1 sandwich
Ingredients:
1 brioche or hamburger bun, cut in half
3 generous tablespoons Coronation Chicken Sauce (see below)
Small handful of Bombay mix (finer London Mix is best if you can get it; CoFresh brand is excellent)
1 x Carl Clarke's Fried Boneless Chicken Thigh (see below)
1 heaping tablespoon lime-pickled onions (see below)
Sprinkle nigella seeds (if you have them)
1 heaping tablespoon of shredded iceberg lettuce mixed with a regular tablespoon of finely chopped cilantro and mint
For the Coronation sauce (makes 2 sandwiches):
2 heaped tablespoons store-bought mayonnaise (I like Hellmann's)
2 heaping tablespoons full fat Greek yogurt
1 tablespoon mild madras curry powder
1 teaspoon red wine vinegar
Salt and pepper
For Carl Clarke's Fried Chicken (makes enough for 4 sandwiches):
4 large boneless chicken thighs, skin on if possible
2 liters of unflavored oil, for frying
To salt the chicken:
284 ml buttermilk (which seems to be the size of the containers sold in supermarkets)
½ teaspoon fine sea salt
½ teaspoon powdered MSG (optional)
For the moist piece of fried chicken:
1 free-range egg
120ml whole milk
For the dry piece of fried chicken:
50 g plain flour
65 g rice flour
20 g corn flour
½ teaspoon fine sea salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
For the lime pickled onions (makes enough for 4 sandwiches):
1 large red onion, peeled and finely chopped
Juice of 1 lime
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon nigella seeds (optional)
Method:
1. For the Coronation sauce: Mix all the ingredients. As always, try it. A little flat, with curry powder and vinegar on top. It lacks depth, a little more salt and pepper. Too rich, maybe a drop of lemon juice or again a splash more vinegar. How easy is that?! And much better than all those fancy ones. And none of that almond and raisin crap: it's not a chocolate bar, it's chicken dip, what were they thinking? This will last at least three or four days.
2. For the fried chicken: To brine the chicken, whisk together the buttermilk, salt, and MSG (if using) in a glass or plastic container, or in a Tupperware or something. Dip the thighs in it and put it in the refrigerator for at least 12 hours. Flip the thighs over from time to time if you remember. When you want to cook the chicken, do the wet part by whisking the egg and milk in a bowl until completely combined and set aside. For the dry part, combine all the ingredients in another bowl, beat them well with a dry whisk and set that aside as well. Remove the chicken thighs from the buttermilk, shake them, and dip them, one at a time, into the flour mixture, then into the wet batter, then back into the flour mixture. Carl says to work/squeeze the coating around the thighs with your hands so that it has an “almost like cornflakes” texture. Carl fries these babies twice, so I'll tell you how to do it, but frankly, at home, once is probably enough, so skip this part to the last paragraph unless you really want to do it. Set your deep fryer to 140°C, or if you're frying in a saucepan, you know the drill: take a large, high-sided frying pan and heat the oil to 140°C, which is the temperature at which a piece of bread sizzles. and it browns. in about 40 seconds (compared to the usual 20). Fry the thighs two at a time, depending on the size of your fryer/pan, for seven minutes, then take them out, place them on a rack and increase the heat on the oil (as if you were making French fries). This time heat the oil to 180°C, when a piece of bread dropped into the oil sizzles and browns in 20 seconds. Fry the chicken again, this time for three or four minutes and let it sit on that rack to cool a little while you prepare all the other pieces for Coronation Chicken Fried Chicken BANGER! If you are only frying once, heat the oil to 180°C from the beginning and fry the chicken for about seven minutes until it is cooked through and over 70°C (158°F) inside. If your fried thighs are long and flat, you may want to cut them in half once fried and stack them on top of each other in your sarnie.
3. Put the sliced onion with the lime juice and salt in a tupperware and massage them all together. Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. Cover and shake, shake, shake. That's all. The longer you leave them in the refrigerator (three to four days) and the more regularly you shake them out of the tub (five times a day?), the more incredibly pink and pucker-lipped they will become, which is one thing. good. I have been known to keep them at home in the refrigerator for weeks and sometimes they start to bubble and ferment, which is fun and delicious. They're also cool (but nowhere near THAT cool) and MUCH less pink if you don't touch them again after making them. If your lime is a little tough, give it a nice firm roll on your cutting board under the palm of your hand before you cut it, you'll get a lot more juice that way. If you want to make them even more lively, add a sliced red chili and you can always change the lime for lemon. Using the above method (and with lots of violent shaking, every 10 minutes?), the onions will be tasty and usable after two hours if you're in a hurry. Just before eating them, you can mix nigella seeds with them. However, only do this right before eating, otherwise they will swell and lose the nice smoky/crispy burst they have.
4. Prepare the sandwich: Spread the inside top and bottom of the bun with the Coronation Chicken Sauce and sprinkle the London/Bombay mixture all over the top.
5. Put the fried thigh on the bottom and cover it with the pickled onions.
6. Sprinkle the nigella seeds (if using) all over, then the lettuce and herb mixture, cover and you're done.
Melted tuna toast
“The idea for this warm little paradise came to me while eating a supposedly excellent tuna melt at Elephant and Castle. As I was eating it, I thought, 'God, I wish it was toast and not all mushy,'” Halley recalls.
And so the tuna toast melt was born, and Halley says this recipe is too filling, giving you the perfect excuse to make another sandwich later.
Brands: 1 sandwich
Ingredients:
1 can non-fancy tuna (unless you fancy it), in water or oil, emptied into the side of a large colander and drained in the sink for at least 10 minutes
¼ onion, cut into small pieces, soaked in cold water for 5 minutes, drained in colander
5-6 pickled jalapeño slices, cut into small pieces and drained in the colander
½ large pickle grated and put in another piece of that strainer
1 heaping teaspoon canned sweet corn (with all the sugar), drained in a strainer
¼ celery stalk, cut lengthwise into 3 or 4 pieces and then into small pieces
Splash of malt vinegar
4 tablespoons Hellmann's mayonnaise
3 tablespoons of your best extra virgin olive oil
2 slices of white supermarket Hovis bread
75 g grated supermarket mozzarella
Salt and pepper
Method:
1. Put the drained tuna in a bowl with the onion, jalapenos, grated pickle, sweet corn, celery, malt vinegar, a large pinch of salt, a little ground black pepper and 3 tablespoons of mayonnaise. Mix everything together with a fork and once combined, one tablespoon at a time, mix the tastiest olive oil into the tuna mixture. Make sure you fully combine each tablespoon of oil before adding the next, or I imagine Kenji López-Alt (whose little trick this is) will be very angry.
2. Spread the remaining tablespoon of mayonnaise on one side of both slices of bread and place one of them mayonnaise side down on the work surface in front of you. Sprinkle with half the mozzarella. Put some of the tuna mixture on top and spread it evenly over the entire sandwich, leaving a little space at the edges. If you can, repeat the shape of the toast pockets, with less in the middle, if you know what I mean, but don't worry if you don't.
3. Put the rest of the cheese on top and put the other piece of bread on top with the mayonnaise side up. I've said it before and I'll say it again: mayonnaise works better on the outside of toast than butter. It's made from oil and egg, which makes it brown beautifully, crispy, and taste fantastic. Using a spatula or your hands, put the sandwich in the machine, close the lid and wait until it is very hot and a delicious color.
Hot Crossbread with Salted Caramel Ice Cream
We've all had an ice cream sandwich before, but this takes things to the next level.
Don't save this dish just for Easter, as it is delicious all year round.
Brands: 1 sandwich
Ingredients:
1 hot cross bun (whichever is your favorite; I like them all, but not so much when they have chocolate and stuff), plus ½ extra bun
1 tablespoon powdered sugar (superfine) or light brown sugar
A splash of pomegranate molasses or REALLY aged balsamic vinegar
1 large scoop of salted caramel ice cream
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 140C (275F). You didn't see that coming in an ice cream sandwich, did you?
2. Toast the remaining half of a hot cross bun in the toaster, let it cool, and grind it into small pieces in a food processor. Put them on a baking tray and sprinkle them with sugar, mix everything and hit the tray in the oven. Every 10 minutes take out the tray and push out all the crumbs with a spatula. Do this for about 20 to 30 minutes, then place the crumbs on a piece of parchment paper and scrape everything off the tray with the spatula. Let them cool and put them back in the food processor for another quick blend until they are the size of really large breadcrumbs. They should be super crispy and delicious, not burnt.
3. Take the fresh, whole, hot cross bun and make a cut most of the way along one side. You're making a pocket for it. Open it as best you can and squish the inside a little with your finger. Drizzle pomegranate molasses or old balsamic inside.
4. Take a scoop of ice cream at a time, roll it in the hot and cold muffin crumbs, press a little, and then pour the ice cream into the muffin. Continue like this until you can't get any more ice cream. Leave it on the shelf in your freezer for 10 minutes to let everything firm up a bit. Take it out and squeeze and mold the bread (carefully, without crushing it or getting the ice cream anywhere). The last thing is to roll up the ice cream exposed in the front with more crumbs and get trapped.
'Max's World of Sandwiches' by Max Halley and Benjamin Benton (Hardie Grant Books, £25).
