**The Art of Making Fried Chicken and Gravy from Scratch**

In this article, we will delve into the world of making fried chicken and gravy from scratch. With a few simple ingredients and some expert guidance, you can create a dish that is sure to impress even the most discerning palates.

First things first, we need to start with the foundation of our recipe: fresh garlic. A tablespoon of chopped up fresh garlic will be added to our pot, along with two cups of chicken stock. The key here is to let the garlic get a little color before adding in the stock. This step may seem simple, but it's essential for bringing out the full flavor of our dish.

Next, we'll add a cold roux to hot liquid. Yes, you read that right – cold roux into hot liquid! This trick is crucial for creating a smooth and creamy gravy. We'll whisk in about two tablespoons of roux at a time, depending on how thick we want our sauce to be. And don't forget to add a little sumac to take it to the next level.

But what really sets this recipe apart is the addition of fresh lemon zest. Store-bought lemons often have a wax coating that prevents us from getting the pure perfume of lemon zest. To fix this, we'll wash our lemons with hot water and then rub off the wax coating. This will give us a bright and citrusy flavor that complements our fried chicken perfectly.

Now it's time to talk about the star of the show: our chicken. We'll start by lightly pan-frying some potatoes – I recommend using rusty or yukon golds for this recipe. Once they're crispy, we'll add in some diced carrots and a quarter of a jalapeno pepper. The key here is to use local ingredients whenever possible, so be sure to choose fresh carrots from your farmer's market.

As our ingredients cook, the aromas will start to fill the air, and you'll know that our dish is coming along nicely. Finally, we'll add in some cooked lentils – I like to use about half a cup for this recipe. These little guys will absorb all the flavors of our sauce and come out tender and delicious.

But before we can plate our fried chicken and gravy, there's one final step: garnishing with fresh herbs. Fresh cilantro and parsley are the perfect accompaniments to our dish, adding a bright and freshness that complements our lemon zest perfectly. And for good measure, let's add a little salt – about half a teaspoon should do the trick.

Now it's time to bring everything together. We'll start by shutting off the pan and adding in some fresh-squeezed lemon juice. A squeeze of lemon will help balance out all the flavors in our dish, and its acidity will cut through the richness of our fried chicken.

The final touch is a drizzle of saffron honey – I like to use about two tablespoons for this recipe. The subtle sweetness of the honey pairs perfectly with the earthy flavor of the saffron, creating a sauce that's both complex and balanced. And just before serving, we'll sprinkle in some lemon zest for an extra burst of citrus flavor.

And there you have it – a fried chicken and gravy recipe from scratch that's sure to impress even the most discerning palates. With its rich flavors, tender ingredients, and expert technique, this dish is sure to become a staple in your kitchen.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: eni'm chef gabe and this is under the hood we are back under the hood 2.0 with chef gabe and my special guest today ari benziken second in command also called sous chef for the fancy chef terms so gabe asked me what my favorite food was as a child and i told him about my mom's stew she used to do a chicken stew with lentils and veggies and so we're gonna play with that today when ari said that i was like man that's such a great idea all right i could taste the stew when he was telling me ideas but then we're like okay how are we going to do it teresa styles you know it's kind of tough in a fine dining establishment fine dining to like serve a chicken stew right so what did we come up with so we decided to marinate it and then fry it okay first thing we're gonna do guys is we're gonna make a marinade for this chicken what are we making this marinade out of ari so onion garlic cilantro salt pepper and turmeric turmeric can be powerful man and then it'll just overpower everything you're cooking with so you gotta really really show some finesse so onion right all you just need is a blender right nice blender half an onion maybe half an onion chop it up a little bit and this is for like a whole chicken yes okay cool when we make marinades here we like to uh use the stems of some of the herbs so like if we use like parsley for instance soft herbs even basil uh we use the whole stem the whole stem on it so of course we have some washed cilantro i mean that's like two cups worth right yes right two cups how many garlic cloves i wasn't sure five to seven pieces of garlic uh one tiny putting a tablespoon maybe a teaspoon like a teaspoon of turmeric just to be easy on it or another teaspoon of salt because we can always add and then about a cup of canola oil good there yeah we just got a chicken and we cut it in half this marinade's enough for at least a whole chicken guys we're only going to ari and i are just doing some r d so we don't really need the whole chicken now ari took the breastbone off now you got to be cognizant okay when i fry this since the breastbone is not there to protect the breast meat make sure you're frying it for a right amount of time okay we're going to fry this for about 12 minutes now we just cut the the chicken into four pieces so you have your leg and thigh together and then we kept the wing together so the wings awesome too especially when you're frying it it's like a little handle so we're gonna marinate this for how long are we four hours at least but you can go overnight overnight's always best i think so just like even when you're making a brine or if you're buying anything you gotta do overnight guys i think that's cool we marinate our chicken right and then next step is fridge for four hours at least or overnight okay by uh the magic of television we marinated overnight people got to keep in mind too like if you're going to fry the chicken don't fry it cold right out of the fridge it's got to come to room temp guys so we're going to dredge this ari in our dredge right yes this is our dredge it's flour equal amounts of flour and corn starch with a little bit of salt and pepper check this out guys check this out you want to get in there and really submerge your chicken you want to get all those little nooks and crannies and get it in there and then just good little shake dust it off right and then always have if you can a little rack the rack because air is going to secure circulate around this and it's building this little magical crust so let's set this aside and then we're going to come back and fry that let's make a simple gravy that's going to be kind of like flavor s i think okay so we're going to use chicken stock that you made right yes so overnight overnight simple chicken mirepoix so onion celery carrots carrots garlic and aromatics a little time a little cilantro bay leaf yeah so just a simple chicken stock and i think chicken stock you can get on the shelf if you need to uh the only thing we got this color is is we toasted the bones right yes so we get a little roasted bone so and it's a simple gravy now a gravy with chicken stock onions garlic and so roux guys is basically butter and flour traditionally but we're using margarine of course so margarine and flour equal parts so just get your pan a little hot maybe 2-3 tablespoons of oil once your oil is hot you're gonna start with your saute on your onions and once you let them get translucent you're gonna throw in some salt and the salt will bring out the sugar in it about a teaspoon for this amount then throw in about what is that a tablespoon of garlic fresh garlic chopped up and you're gonna let it get a little color just a little bit and once that happens you're gonna add in your chicken stock about two cups and we're gonna add cold roux to hot liquid right yes right that's the trick guys so if you're gonna put cold roux into hot liquid or cold liquid into hot root now we're going to get the whisk and once the chicken stop chicken stock comes to a boil we'll add in the roux so roo's going in and you're going to add probably about what two tablespoons two tablespoons at a time just depending because sometimes it'll thicken it up quicker than you think and just use a whisk to like break it into the sauce the little sumac is just gonna i'm gonna add probably about half a teaspoon guys just just want to take it to another level and then we're going to add a little fresh lemon zest to get really good lemon zest you got to wash your lemons with hot hot water because store-bought lemons usually have a wax coating on them and you got to rub that off or you're never going to get the pure perfume of lemon zest so a little zest right that's good that's real good right right yeah i think we'll shut it off right and i think we'll go fry that chicken we're gonna start with the leg first right and then when we add the chicken right you want to let it float into the oil first before you let it go because what happens is we're frying the outside just a little bit so it doesn't stick to the bottom first thing we're gonna do is what we're gonna have make sure got a nice hot pan right add a little oil add a little oil and we're gonna like lightly pan fry some potatoes right i say enough for you and me and maybe someone else to try so let me get those nice and crispy we're gonna add a little more oil on top right it's just a quick saute and those are rusty potatoes or these are yukon golds awesome so our next step would be what ari the carrots and the carrots and we just got some local carrots that we just small diced up right from our farmer let's add a little heat so we did a little bit of chopped jalapeno right yeah but i took the seeds out took the stems out i love the smell and taste of jalapeno i just don't like the heat of jalapeno sometimes the lentils are going to be the last thing we add why because they're fully cooked right here they could they'll otherwise they'll just start breaking apart let's add a little jalapeno in there a nice six tablespoon tablespoon a little one potato half a carrot a quarter of a jalapeno oh you could start smelling that already and it smells and we'll probably add the salt a little salt now right now so it'll bring everything out half a teaspoon yeah let's do the lentils right now let him have it there you go beautiful there you go probably like half a cup last thing i'm thinking right now is garnish you have your salt right and we're going to garnish with a little bit of fresh cilantro and some fresh parsley right yes i'm just going to do a little rough little rough and this goes last guys fresh herbs are going to go last when he shuts off that pan it's going to be the last thing we're going to put in i think we're going to add a little bit of fresh squeezed lemon right yes a little wedge there are no seeds cherry little seeds in there squeeze the lemon in and i'm going to shut it off i don't know if you want to grab a little here and then put it in this little skillet when you're done yeah so we have uh the chicken right that's been marinated and fried and fried now we have the gravy right a little bit of sumac and lemon zest yes right we have our ash or our saute our lentil saute saute and then the only other element that we didn't discuss was really something simple i always add like sweet with my fried chicken and i pulled ari's teeth and i was like let's make a saffron honey so all these little couple saffron strands uh steeped in some honey and some warm water it's a nice consistency so we're gonna finish the dish with that hopefully we made a mom proud little tribute at the same time chicken look at the consistency of that gravy then a little cilantro i think we should hit it with a little more lemon zest right at the end a little bit of honey let's give it a little spinneroo oh there we go look at that i hope you guys enjoy this let us know if you need any help with the recipes thank youi'm chef gabe and this is under the hood we are back under the hood 2.0 with chef gabe and my special guest today ari benziken second in command also called sous chef for the fancy chef terms so gabe asked me what my favorite food was as a child and i told him about my mom's stew she used to do a chicken stew with lentils and veggies and so we're gonna play with that today when ari said that i was like man that's such a great idea all right i could taste the stew when he was telling me ideas but then we're like okay how are we going to do it teresa styles you know it's kind of tough in a fine dining establishment fine dining to like serve a chicken stew right so what did we come up with so we decided to marinate it and then fry it okay first thing we're gonna do guys is we're gonna make a marinade for this chicken what are we making this marinade out of ari so onion garlic cilantro salt pepper and turmeric turmeric can be powerful man and then it'll just overpower everything you're cooking with so you gotta really really show some finesse so onion right all you just need is a blender right nice blender half an onion maybe half an onion chop it up a little bit and this is for like a whole chicken yes okay cool when we make marinades here we like to uh use the stems of some of the herbs so like if we use like parsley for instance soft herbs even basil uh we use the whole stem the whole stem on it so of course we have some washed cilantro i mean that's like two cups worth right yes right two cups how many garlic cloves i wasn't sure five to seven pieces of garlic uh one tiny putting a tablespoon maybe a teaspoon like a teaspoon of turmeric just to be easy on it or another teaspoon of salt because we can always add and then about a cup of canola oil good there yeah we just got a chicken and we cut it in half this marinade's enough for at least a whole chicken guys we're only going to ari and i are just doing some r d so we don't really need the whole chicken now ari took the breastbone off now you got to be cognizant okay when i fry this since the breastbone is not there to protect the breast meat make sure you're frying it for a right amount of time okay we're going to fry this for about 12 minutes now we just cut the the chicken into four pieces so you have your leg and thigh together and then we kept the wing together so the wings awesome too especially when you're frying it it's like a little handle so we're gonna marinate this for how long are we four hours at least but you can go overnight overnight's always best i think so just like even when you're making a brine or if you're buying anything you gotta do overnight guys i think that's cool we marinate our chicken right and then next step is fridge for four hours at least or overnight okay by uh the magic of television we marinated overnight people got to keep in mind too like if you're going to fry the chicken don't fry it cold right out of the fridge it's got to come to room temp guys so we're going to dredge this ari in our dredge right yes this is our dredge it's flour equal amounts of flour and corn starch with a little bit of salt and pepper check this out guys check this out you want to get in there and really submerge your chicken you want to get all those little nooks and crannies and get it in there and then just good little shake dust it off right and then always have if you can a little rack the rack because air is going to secure circulate around this and it's building this little magical crust so let's set this aside and then we're going to come back and fry that let's make a simple gravy that's going to be kind of like flavor s i think okay so we're going to use chicken stock that you made right yes so overnight overnight simple chicken mirepoix so onion celery carrots carrots garlic and aromatics a little time a little cilantro bay leaf yeah so just a simple chicken stock and i think chicken stock you can get on the shelf if you need to uh the only thing we got this color is is we toasted the bones right yes so we get a little roasted bone so and it's a simple gravy now a gravy with chicken stock onions garlic and so roux guys is basically butter and flour traditionally but we're using margarine of course so margarine and flour equal parts so just get your pan a little hot maybe 2-3 tablespoons of oil once your oil is hot you're gonna start with your saute on your onions and once you let them get translucent you're gonna throw in some salt and the salt will bring out the sugar in it about a teaspoon for this amount then throw in about what is that a tablespoon of garlic fresh garlic chopped up and you're gonna let it get a little color just a little bit and once that happens you're gonna add in your chicken stock about two cups and we're gonna add cold roux to hot liquid right yes right that's the trick guys so if you're gonna put cold roux into hot liquid or cold liquid into hot root now we're going to get the whisk and once the chicken stop chicken stock comes to a boil we'll add in the roux so roo's going in and you're going to add probably about what two tablespoons two tablespoons at a time just depending because sometimes it'll thicken it up quicker than you think and just use a whisk to like break it into the sauce the little sumac is just gonna i'm gonna add probably about half a teaspoon guys just just want to take it to another level and then we're going to add a little fresh lemon zest to get really good lemon zest you got to wash your lemons with hot hot water because store-bought lemons usually have a wax coating on them and you got to rub that off or you're never going to get the pure perfume of lemon zest so a little zest right that's good that's real good right right yeah i think we'll shut it off right and i think we'll go fry that chicken we're gonna start with the leg first right and then when we add the chicken right you want to let it float into the oil first before you let it go because what happens is we're frying the outside just a little bit so it doesn't stick to the bottom first thing we're gonna do is what we're gonna have make sure got a nice hot pan right add a little oil add a little oil and we're gonna like lightly pan fry some potatoes right i say enough for you and me and maybe someone else to try so let me get those nice and crispy we're gonna add a little more oil on top right it's just a quick saute and those are rusty potatoes or these are yukon golds awesome so our next step would be what ari the carrots and the carrots and we just got some local carrots that we just small diced up right from our farmer let's add a little heat so we did a little bit of chopped jalapeno right yeah but i took the seeds out took the stems out i love the smell and taste of jalapeno i just don't like the heat of jalapeno sometimes the lentils are going to be the last thing we add why because they're fully cooked right here they could they'll otherwise they'll just start breaking apart let's add a little jalapeno in there a nice six tablespoon tablespoon a little one potato half a carrot a quarter of a jalapeno oh you could start smelling that already and it smells and we'll probably add the salt a little salt now right now so it'll bring everything out half a teaspoon yeah let's do the lentils right now let him have it there you go beautiful there you go probably like half a cup last thing i'm thinking right now is garnish you have your salt right and we're going to garnish with a little bit of fresh cilantro and some fresh parsley right yes i'm just going to do a little rough little rough and this goes last guys fresh herbs are going to go last when he shuts off that pan it's going to be the last thing we're going to put in i think we're going to add a little bit of fresh squeezed lemon right yes a little wedge there are no seeds cherry little seeds in there squeeze the lemon in and i'm going to shut it off i don't know if you want to grab a little here and then put it in this little skillet when you're done yeah so we have uh the chicken right that's been marinated and fried and fried now we have the gravy right a little bit of sumac and lemon zest yes right we have our ash or our saute our lentil saute saute and then the only other element that we didn't discuss was really something simple i always add like sweet with my fried chicken and i pulled ari's teeth and i was like let's make a saffron honey so all these little couple saffron strands uh steeped in some honey and some warm water it's a nice consistency so we're gonna finish the dish with that hopefully we made a mom proud little tribute at the same time chicken look at the consistency of that gravy then a little cilantro i think we should hit it with a little more lemon zest right at the end a little bit of honey let's give it a little spinneroo oh there we go look at that i hope you guys enjoy this let us know if you need any help with the recipes thank you\n"