- 6 hours ago
Give your guests a fright with this devilishly scary dinner! In this video, Chef John shows you how to make crime scene chicken, using a cooking technique inspired by Korean barbecue to make a strikingly red and deeply flavorful main course. Make deep cuts along a whole chicken so every nook and cranny can soak in the homemade wet rub flavor and roast until crispy and smoked. Add more “blood” sauce for an extra spooky, weeknight dinner, then carve it up and serve over a bowl of rice and veggies!
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Hello, this is Chef John from Foodwishes.com with Crime Scene Chicken.
00:08That's right, this chicken has been a victim of foul play.
00:11It's been stabbed, drowned, burned, and shot with a camera.
00:16But the technique I'm about to show you is much more than a provocative presentation.
00:21It's a way to do roasted chicken that has a lot more flavor.
00:25Oh yeah, this is to die for.
00:27And to get started, we're going to need one whole chicken.
00:30And strangely enough, this one came with a wingtip missing.
00:33Almost as if whoever butchered it saved it as a souvenir.
00:37But anyway, to prep this, what we'll do is take a sharp knife,
00:40and we'll start making deep cuts and slashes all over the carcass.
00:44Starting with the leg, all the way down to the joint.
00:47And then for pretty much every cut we make, we will also slice across.
00:51Again, nice and deep.
00:53And once the leg's done, we'll do the same thing to the thigh.
00:56And then we'll repeat that on the other side.
00:59And besides giving us that intentionally horrific look we're going for,
01:03these deep cuts are going to allow our wet rub to penetrate into the meat.
01:07And after it's roasted, the meat's going to be way more flavorful than if we just put everything on the
01:12outside.
01:13And then for the breasts, I'm going to make one long deep slash near the center,
01:17and then slice across here and there, wherever I think it looks good.
01:21Or I guess I mean bad.
01:23Oh, and pro tip, I think we should do these sort of randomly and semi-asymmetrical.
01:29All right, if we did this very precisely, it would look more ritualistic, which would indicate premeditation.
01:36But if we do these randomly, it will seem more like a crime of passion.
01:40And a good lawyer would get us lesser of a sentence for that.
01:43But anyway, you're going to be the one holding the weapon.
01:46So it's going to be up to you.
01:48I mean, you are after all the Edgar Allan Poe of where these cuts should go.
01:52But anyway, once those main muscles have been slashed, cut, and stabbed,
01:56we can do a little bit of knife work on the skin in the back,
01:59especially into any of the fattier sections,
02:01which will help that render out as it's roasts.
02:04And then we can do the same thing to the skin in the front, if there's enough.
02:08But this one didn't really have too much there.
02:11So I'm going to stop and set this aside for a minute
02:13while we go ahead and make our wet rub,
02:15also known as the blood.
02:18And we'll start that with some Korean chili paste,
02:21known as gochujang,
02:23or as any real foodwisher pronounces it,
02:26gochefjong.
02:27And then to that we will also add some ketchup,
02:30followed by a little bit of honey,
02:31for sweetness to balance these other flavors.
02:34Although we could also use brown sugar,
02:36or maple syrup,
02:37or even some molasses,
02:39which maybe would have gave this more of a bloody color.
02:41But anyway, we'll follow that with some soy sauce,
02:44as well as a little touch of sesame oil.
02:47And then we'll also toss in a little bit of garlic powder,
02:50as well as some onion powder,
02:53which is always clumpy.
02:54Why is onion powder always clumpy?
02:56And that's it.
02:57We'll go ahead and give this a whisk.
02:59And as usual,
03:00as we're doing this,
03:01we're always trying to remember what we forgot,
03:03which for me was the rice vinegar.
03:06So I added that in,
03:07and finished the mixing.
03:09And then before we drowned our chicken in this,
03:11we'll take a ladle,
03:13and we'll remove about half into a saucepan,
03:15that we'll use to decorate our crime scene,
03:17and serve with the cut chicken later.
03:19And once that's been accomplished,
03:21we'll grab our chicken,
03:22and we'll place it into the bowl,
03:23and we will generously salt the surface,
03:27as well as the inside of the cavity,
03:29since we didn't add any salt to this wet rub.
03:32And once we've added that additional seasoning,
03:34we'll go ahead and toss it around,
03:36drowning it in the mixture until it's coated.
03:39And you're probably thinking,
03:40that's too shallow to use the term drowned,
03:42but it's not.
03:44And I'd love to explain why,
03:46but I can't.
03:47And once our chicken has been tossed around,
03:50I'm going to grab a pastry brush,
03:52and use that to finish the job.
03:54And make sure that stuff is going into every nook and cranny.
03:57And once we feel like that's happened,
03:59we'll go ahead and transfer that onto a lightly oiled,
04:02aluminum foil lined baking sheet.
04:04And once that's been placed on,
04:06if we have any extra sauce,
04:07we can brush that on as well.
04:09And that's it.
04:10This is now ready to transfer into the upper center,
04:13of a 450 degree oven,
04:15for about an hour,
04:17depending on how big your chicken is,
04:19or until it's safely cooked through,
04:21as determined by you.
04:23And while that's happening,
04:24we'll take our reserve sauce,
04:26and we'll pour in a splash of cold fresh water,
04:28and we'll give it a stir and bring it up to a boil.
04:32Right?
04:32Not a vigorous one,
04:33since we don't want this to reduce.
04:35So all we need is something that looks like this.
04:38And what we'll do once we have that,
04:40is whisk in a cornstarch slurry,
04:42which is a teaspoon of cornstarch
04:44dissolved in a tablespoon of water.
04:46And we will whisk that in,
04:48and reduce our heat to low.
04:50And that cornstarch should thicken this up just enough,
04:52to make it sort of look like blood.
04:54And that's it.
04:55We can turn off the heat,
04:56since that's pretty much ready to use.
04:59And sure,
04:59we could adjust this with some food coloring,
05:01for an even more realistic blood color.
05:04But for me,
05:04that was close enough.
05:06So what we'll do is set that aside,
05:08and wait for our chicken to finish cooking.
05:10At which point,
05:11if everything goes according to plan,
05:12it should look absolutely horrific.
05:15But don't worry,
05:16it's going to look worse.
05:17And what we'll do at this point,
05:19is grab a clean pastry brush,
05:20and we will brush some of those pan drippings here and there.
05:23And yes,
05:24I said clean brush.
05:26Right?
05:26Do not use the one you used on the raw chicken,
05:28unless you want this to turn into an actual crime scene.
05:31And once we've brushed the body,
05:33we'll remove that to a plate.
05:35And when you do,
05:36try not to poke through the foil with your fork like I did,
05:39since now I have to wash what would have been a nice clean pan.
05:42But anyway,
05:43we'll take that and transfer it onto our serving platter.
05:46And then we'll take these delicious accumulated juices,
05:49and we will add them to our blood sauce.
05:51And then we'll head over to complete our crime scene scene.
05:55And maybe we'll break and dislocate a wing,
05:58and or tear some of the skin,
06:00to make things a little more gruesome.
06:02At which point,
06:03we'll grab our sauce,
06:04and bloody this thing up.
06:06And in hindsight,
06:07I probably applied too much,
06:08since I kind of filled in some of the cuts,
06:11and things started to look less violent.
06:13But I definitely wanted it to pool up on the tray in certain spots.
06:17But no matter how much you use,
06:19or where you put it,
06:20I think we definitely have to finish,
06:22by blood splattering the tray.
06:24Oh yeah,
06:25that's how those CSI people,
06:27are going to figure out if we're left or right handed.
06:30And that's it.
06:30I finished up by impaling one of the legs,
06:32with my meat fork.
06:34And then of course,
06:35as a final touch,
06:36we have to place the murder weapon near the body.
06:39And that's it.
06:40What I'm calling crime scene chicken,
06:41was ready to enjoy.
06:44So let me go ahead and slice off a few pieces,
06:46and see how I did.
06:47And that,
06:48my friends,
06:49appearances aside,
06:50is just an absolutely fantastic way to roast chicken.
06:53All right,
06:54by making all those deep cuts,
06:56we've created a ton of extra surface area,
06:58which always means more flavor,
07:00and deeper flavor.
07:02And if you're worried the technique's going to dry the chicken out,
07:05don't.
07:05This was perfectly moist and juicy,
07:08so fear not.
07:09And while I thought the Korean barbecue inspired take we did here really was amazing,
07:14don't forget,
07:14this is just a technique,
07:16and not a specific recipe.
07:17So feel free to try this with other flavorings and sauces.
07:21And no,
07:22we probably shouldn't just eat off the platter.
07:24What we'll do is carve out the chicken,
07:26and serve it over something nice,
07:27like some roasted Brussels sprouts and brown rice.
07:30And we'll top that with some more sauce,
07:32and maybe some snip chives.
07:34But no matter how you serve this,
07:36I think it's a really fun idea,
07:38that your guests will enjoy.
07:40And whether you do this for something like a Halloween party,
07:42or for a new murder mystery series watch party,
07:45or just to confuse your family on some random weeknight,
07:49no matter the occasion,
07:51I really do hope you give this a try soon.
07:54So please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts,
07:57a printable written recipe,
07:59and much more info as usual.
08:01And as always,
08:04enjoy.