Ethiopian Fried Chicken

Eater

Doro Soul Food in D.C. is frying up some of the crunchiest fried chicken infused with Ethiopian spices. Chef Elias Taddesse blends Ethiopian classics like doro wat in the creamy mac and cheese, and uses berbere and mitmita spices in the fried chicken hot oil glaze. Watch his meticulous process of breaking down each chicken, seasoning it with a dry and wet rub, and double-frying it to achieve a perfectly crispy crust and juicy meat inside.

Transcript

00:00There are three components in fried chicken.

00:03Most important being that it has to be crunchy.

00:07Two, it has to be very moist.

00:10Third, the flavor has to penetrate all the way to the bone.

00:14Every bite you're taking is not all the flavors,

00:15not just on the skin or on the back.

00:17It has to go all the way to the center of the chicken.

00:19Dorosol food is Ethiopian-inspired fried chicken.

00:23But what we do differently is we incorporate Ethiopian

00:26ingredients in our spices, mixture, and sauces,

00:29which makes the chicken more flavorful.

00:37First things first, we're going to butcher our chickens.

00:39This is straight out of the box, very dry.

00:42So this helps with the, you know, keep it crispy.

00:45We choose to keep the bone on because one, it keeps the chicken moist

00:48and also brings a good amount of flavor.

00:51So now what I'm going to do is I'll grab from here.

00:53I just clean all the unnecessary fat, right?

00:56So that way when I'm butchering, everything is ready to go.

00:59Come back, make sure there's no fat.

01:02These are the things that I call danger to your crunch.

01:07As I'm working, I'm finding always the angle where I want to cut.

01:11And then this side gives me this angle right here.

01:15Ideally butchering every other day.

01:16And we go anywhere from 15 to 25 cases.

01:20And then here you have your dart meat, your thighs, legs, and wings.

01:24And then this is for our fried chicken sandwich.

01:27We don't use the skin.

01:28For fried chicken sandwich, it just gets too greasy, in my opinion.

01:32Previously, I had worked at a melange.

01:34One of our most popular dish was the national,

01:37which is a doro, what's inspired chicken sandwich.

01:40And it became really, really popular.

01:43So the doro national fried chicken sandwich really opened the gateways

01:47and inspiration to create doro soul food concepts.

01:52So now we're making our dry rub for our chicken and then our marinade.

01:56So we start with garlic powder, black pepper, heart mix,

02:01and turmeric, obviously for a good amount of color.

02:04And this is where we come in with the Ethiopian flavor, berbere.

02:08This is our staple spice blend that we use to make a variety of our preparations.

02:13It's like a flavored paprika.

02:15Going back to that crispy aspect of it,

02:16and something I obviously again picked up from Eric, is ever crisp,

02:20which helps your chicken stay crispy for a longer period of time.

02:23As I was implementing the fried chicken concept,

02:25I started looking into who has the best fried chicken.

02:29And that's when I discovered Eric from Peking House.

02:33I'm gonna be honest, I did the drive to New York.

02:35Actually, it was there when it first opened the first week.

02:38I wanted to have that crunchy aspect of how that worked.

02:41Shout out to Eric, it was our inspiration.

02:44Fully coated all the way.

02:46See, obviously on these ones, I don't do as much.

02:48If you notice on the breast, I do a good amount.

02:51And then same thing for these.

02:52So you have to be a little bit delicate.

02:54Once we have our dry rub, we're gonna let it sit for maybe about an hour,

02:58two hours, just for the flavors to pin it through.

03:00So again, so now that we have our dry rub mix,

03:03we make that marinade, the wet marinade.

03:05We do buttermilk, half a gallon to half a gallon of buttermilk.

03:11So we use triple blend of flours.

03:13This is really where the crunch comes from.

03:15By using bread flour, one, it helps get more dense.

03:18So it helps you from creating like a soggy crunch, right?

03:22Another part that we use is regular all-purpose flour.

03:25So if I just use just AP flour, the crunch is much thinner, right?

03:31So then over time, it starts getting soggy or it just cooks too fast.

03:35And then we finally finish with a self-rising flour.

03:38So the reason we use self-rising flour for this particular marinade,

03:43over time kind of aerates the gluten.

03:47When you get that crunch, it's not too dense.

03:49So the reason why we first do the dry rub for the chicken,

03:52it's going to continue to brine and push the flavor all the way to the bottom.

03:56I'm whisking with my hands because I don't want it to be like a smooth paste, right?

04:00I want it to be lumpy, essentially.

04:02So because what happens is these little lumps that stay the little flours,

04:06they're going to rehydrate over time and they stick to the chicken.

04:10So now that we have the dark meat marinated, you know, you can freely just work it.

04:14But for the breast, you have to be a little bit more delicate.

04:16So for this, we actually do it individually.

04:20When I was thinking of this concept, you know, I was going through hard times.

04:23It's almost like a way of, again, finding comfort.

04:27So now we're going to make our kibe.

04:28This is a seasoned, spiced butter.

04:31It goes on everything.

04:32We use this to make our own stews and also for our hot oils.

04:35Once you have your butter going, your predominant flavor is korarima.

04:41Once it's clarified, you add basobla, which is the Ethiopian basil.

04:46And then you add the kosher.

04:49This is what brings that very flavorful, sweet, umami flavor into a lot of our preparations.

04:55We let this stay overnight, you know, all the flavors push through.

04:59So the next day you have this really nice, gold, bright, shiny, clarified butter.

05:05So now we're going to make our dorawat.

05:08Wat meaning stews, which is our base for our mac and cheese.

05:12And also our national dish in Ethiopia.

05:14When we think about dorawat, onion is the essential ingredient.

05:18Think of like French onion soup.

05:19It brings like the body texture.

05:21We're going to cook it for like, let's say about an hour or two.

05:24So as the moisture goes down, we add garlic and ginger.

05:27We sweat that out again.

05:28Once it's completely dry, we add our ibe.

05:31And as soon as this starts cooking, it starts releasing aromatics.

05:37Dorawat is always for most Ethiopians.

05:39It's a symbol of holiday, joy, family gathering.

05:43And that's where it can't get any more comfort.

05:46Dorawat is our full food.

05:48We're going to let this cook until the fat starts separating from the onions.

05:54And that's when you know it's ready.

05:56The one flavor that is actually in our dorawat concept is our mac and cheese.

06:00In which we incorporate some of the wood into the bechamel.

06:04So now this is what the dorawat looks like after it's been cooked for hours.

06:07This is really where that flavor starts coming through.

06:11Now we add our cheese.

06:13We use mild cheddar, mozzarella, and montereyja.

06:17Now we're going to assemble our mac and cheese.

06:21You see how it's already starting to get thick?

06:22So halfway, we add the same three cheeses in the center.

06:25This is what is going to give you that nice center pull.

06:28This goes in the oven.

06:33Ideally, before you fry, you want to let it rest and come into temperature.

06:37If you fry it from cold, by the time your temperature pushes through to the center,

06:41you're going to start burning your outer side.

06:44So we let it temper for at least about an hour or two.

06:47This is the one that's been marinated for 24 hours.

06:49So final step, right before we drop it in the fryer,

06:52we dredge it in our triple flour and triple starch blend,

06:55which consists of double flour, bread flour, all-purpose flour,

06:58and potato starch, corn starch, and tapioca.

07:01This makes it extra crunchy.

07:03It keeps it from getting soggy.

07:05To be able to make sure that everything cooks at the same time

07:07and the same temperature, we start with the thicker parts of the breast,

07:11and then we do the front side of the chicken breast.

07:14So we double fry our chicken.

07:16We first start with the lower temperature, about 300 to 325.

07:20That helps us keep the color, put the heat through without it's too dark.

07:24And then once we fry that, we let it rest so all the heat goes through.

07:28It gets nice and moist.

07:30So as we get orders in, we flash fry it at an oil that is about 350.

07:36See? See what we're talking about?

07:39See that crunch? That's the difference.

07:40That's what we're creating.

07:41You see that? Who gets some more crunch?

07:43Nobody had beat me yet.

07:45Chef Eric, I challenge you to a fried chicken showdown.

07:48Like when we know it's ready and where we want it to get to is about that nice golden color.

07:53As you can see, this one is a little lighter compared to that one.

07:56So essentially, we're pretty much like frying all day to keep up with order.

08:00Every day, all day, we're frying.

08:05We've operated pretty much since I opened Doros Whole Foods.

08:07We've operated at the care and delivery location.

08:10And now we're moving into our new space.

08:12I'm assuming, obviously, we're going to double in production.

08:15Because this location is bigger and also we're doing indoor dining, we expect to get a lot busier.

08:22So this also gives us a chance to get ahead a little bit,

08:24taste a few recipes along the way if we want to tweak a few things.

08:27So now we're going to like our hot oil.

08:29So our chicken is served three ways.

08:31One is naked.

08:32Two is barbari hot.

08:34The third one is mitmita bernaboy.

08:36On the barbari, we glaze it in a mix of kebe, barbari, salt and sugar and smoke powder.

08:42Same for the mitmita, which is made with bird's eye chili.

08:45That's our hot.

08:45And we just glaze it, kind of like you do a traditional hot chicken.

08:49When I started thinking of introducing the Ethiopian flavors with my background and training,

08:54what best place to do it in D.C., which is the biggest Ethiopian population next to Ethiopia.

08:59So that's why I brought the fried chicken concept to D.C.

09:03And I don't think no one in D.C. is doing Ethiopian-inspired flavor fried chicken.

09:07I haven't seen it also anywhere in the United States.

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