The Perfect Chicken Sandwich

[UnCulinary]

These past few weeks I've been on a quest. A quest to figure out how to create the perfect chicken sandwich. My results however have not been to my liking, I'll tell you more about them in a second. It's my opinion that this forum has some extremely smart and talented cooks, so help me out, how would you go about creating the perfect chicken sandwich?

Here are the constraints:

• Must use the breast
  
• Must be able to be served quickly in a restaurant setting (preferably a cook time of sub 5 minutes)
  
• Use a combination of Sous Vide, Baking, Frying, or Grilling
  

So for simplicity sake we are solely talking about cooking the breast for a sandwich. Not the bread used or the toppings on the sandwich (I believe I have a great bun and topping combinations). So here have been my results thus far.

First I have found (I'm sure as most of you already know) that the breast must be brined to have any sort of flavor at all. Currently I am using a citrus based brine (salt, lime juice, lemon juice, orange juice, zest of all three, and water) which I have liked the results so far. I usually vacuum seal the breast with the brine, pound it out, and let it sit for at least 6 hours.

Secondly, my original idea was to sous vide the breast (63C for 1 hour) and then finish off on either the grill or the skillet. But what I have found is that the breast loses something in texture through the sous vide process. The flavor is OK, it is just off texture wise for a sandwich. Further more it is very hard to get a texture on the outside. Which (kinda) brings me to the third thing.

A good sandwich needs an element of crunch. I was trying to avoid frying it, because I wanted to see if a great grilled chicken sandwich is possible. So I have been taking the skin and baking it in the oven (400F for about 25-30 min) to get it crispy and then adding that to the sandwich, which has actually turned out great, but sometimes i am not sure if it is enough.

All in all it still needs a lot of work.

So what is your approach for the perfect chicken sandwich? (I will not except an answer of "It can't be done.")

[BadRabbit]

I cut my breasts in half longitudinally and marinade them in red wine vinegar with garlic powder, italian herbs, salt and pepper. I usually marinade them until I can see the acid just starting to lighten the chicken (which is usually just a couple of hours). I put enough salt in the marinade to season the chicken and like it better than a water based brine.

I have cooked them sous vide and finished on a very hot grill and they are good but they are much better if you grill them with no sous vide. With a hot grill you could get them done in 6-8 minutes depending on the size of the breasts. I know that's a little long for the service constraints but that's how you'll get the best flavor/texture. I have yet to find a parcook method for service that yielded a good quality final product. Sous vide is great for some applications but a chicken sandwich is not one of them IMO.

I like your idea of the chicken skin for texture.

[thirtyoneknots]

Are you opposed to the chicken being cold? That would radically simplify things.

[Charcuterer]

I agree with Bad Rabbit whole heartedly. I do the longitudinal slice about half way through the meat and open it like a book and it's the same thickness throughout with no pounding. I don't use any vinegar or acid in my marinade, it is fresh garlic, Lime zest, scallions, salt, black pepper, habanero pepers and olive oil that I puree and put in the vacuum canister with the meat. I let it marinate at low pressure for an hour or so and grill it quickly on a smoking hot grill. 8 to 10 minutes. The habaneros don't really make it hot but the flavor is incredible. Also with no acid in the marinade you dont get any of the weird denatured protein texture even if it sits too long.

Mostly I get crunch from the toppings. I do lettuce, onions, tomatoes and garlic aioli. Now I'm hungry!

[UnCulinary]

I have cooked them sous vide and finished on a very hot grill and they are good but they are much better if you grill them with no sous vide. With a hot grill you could get them done in 6-8 minutes depending on the size of the breasts. I know that's a little long for the service constraints but that's how you'll get the best flavor/texture. I have yet to find a parcook method for service that yielded a good quality final product. Sous vide is great for some applications but a chicken sandwich is not one of them IMO.

Yeah I am in total agreement that Sous Vide is not the way to go with this, although that was disappointing because I was sure that it would be a great way of holding the chicken cooked perfectly for service. I also agree that the best results I have gotten are when you grill them up from raw with no sous vide, however I would like to cut that cook time of 6-8 minutes in half. I guess what I am looking for is the parcook method that none of us can find...

Are you opposed to the chicken being cold? That would radically simplify things.

I wouldn't be opposed to the chicken being cold if it yielded the best chicken sandwich possible, but in my opinion the best chicken sandwich is most likely going to be a hot one.

[Holly Moore]

With apologies for violating the rules set for this post, my nomination for best chicken sandwich is the fried breaded skin and thigh meat from a piece of Popeye's chicken heaped inside a warm buttermilk biscuit.

[Katie Meadow]

There are two ways I like a chicken sandwich. One is the Betty's Bakesale way, which is fried breast meat with spicy slaw. Very simple, but not so simple if you have to fry the chicken yourself; and I don't do that. In the early days that sandwich was dynamite, but now the line is so long I find the quality is suffering.

The second way is grilled, in a banh mi. Of course freshly grilled and still warm is best, but not always practical. If I don't have leftover grilled chicken, I might quick saute slices of breast meat in a pan in butter. The crunch factor comes from the carrot-daikon pickle, which is easy to make in bulk and keeps well in the fridge. The usual suspects include cilantro, mayo plus maggi, sliced jalapeno and sliced cucumber. If you take the trouble, adding a smear of pate makes it perfect. If you have all the ingredients on hand it's easy to put together. I'm very happy using a good baguette and don't require an authentic Viet roll.

[BadRabbit]

This may be a little complicated but it might work.

Package your chicken breasts individually or in bags that roughly approximate your needs over a specific time period (for instance an hour or half-hour).

Load breasts in periodically to a SV bath set at a safe but fairly low temp (say 143F). Make sure to always cook FIFO and go straight from bath to grill.

What you are shooting for here is to catch the chicken breasts on their way to temp so that most of the cooking is actually done on the grill (optimal range would probably be 100F-120F). This will significantly cut your time down but will likely keep most of the SV texture problems away.

Potential issues:

Bath temperature stability as you would be periodically adding cold chicken to the bath

Workflow issues depending on the location of your bath in relation to the grill.

This setup might be difficult for the health department to understand and apply codes to.

There may be safety issues I'm overlooking but I'm sure someone will point them out if so.

[Kouign Aman]

Potato chips for the crunch? (layered in the sandwich)

[sculptor]

I guess I'm a Brie and Portobello kind of guy so I'd not be going for a crunch... I'd also go for baking verses SV. Baked chicken breast will be plenty tender if it's not overcooked.