00:12okay this is like my first apartment in the city hi I'm Leah Cohen and today we
00:20are making a Thai fried chicken normally you can find me a pig and cow in the
00:24Lower East Side but today I'm in someone's kitchen in the East Village
00:27wait whose kitchen is this hey it's Alyssa three things to know before you try to
00:33cooking here one I never cook I pretty much survive on takeout two I don't have
00:39many pots and pans because I just don't need them and then three I don't really
00:44have any serious cutlery or measuring cups or even bowls good luck okay my
00:51reaction when I first saw this kitchen was okay this isn't that bad this is a
00:56good prep space once I started going through the cupboards that was when I
01:00really felt thrown off damn she got nothing in here there's a lot of shoes so
01:07I'm gonna start by covering this tabletop with plastic wrap um I need to open
01:16this this is literally the hardest part of this recipe okay we got our cutting
01:25board I could see a knife though this is the only knife that I have to work with I
01:29am gonna take the butter knife and clean the cilantro root scoring the chicken
01:35this is gonna be fun obviously if you have a sharp knife this is probably easier in an
01:41ideal world the incisions will just be enough to break the flesh and then I
01:47got to figure out a mortar and pestle
01:55I feel like that's gonna break
02:03okay just a couple of cloves try to break it up pepper
02:09coriander seeds this is actually not the worst thing ever trying to convince
02:14myself but it's not salt pound away I want to break the actual cup okay figure
02:25that would happen first attempt with a mortar and pestle was an absolute fail I
02:32broke the mortar sorry I'll get you a new one we're starting over again with
02:37a ziploc bag and we're gonna use the bottle of oyster sauce so this is not
02:43the consistency of the pace that I would like but it's good enough we're just
02:47gonna add the rest of the ingredients which is oyster sauce fish sauce we're
02:51just eyeballing everything which is fine some sugar and MSG then we are going to
02:58just add our chicken and then massage it all up in there let this marinate for a
03:04couple of hours but it's better overnight all right so it's been about six
03:08hours the chickens been marinating now we're ready to make the batter so we
03:13have the rice flour baking soda and then we're gonna use just a pinch of the
03:19mushroom powder and then a little bit of salt I'm gonna grab a fork from my tool bin I love
03:28how I'm
03:28calling it a tool bin it's literally a mug with silverware all right so we're
03:34using a seltzer water instead of regular water also just to make the batter
03:39lighter okay so you're looking kind of for thinner than a pancake batter a little
03:45bit thicker than a crepe batter we're gonna pour some flour onto the sheet pan
03:50I'm using rice flour here because that's what's traditional in the Thai
03:53fried chicken also it gives it an like a crispier coating you want the coating to
03:58stick to the chicken so you're gonna let it sit for I don't know maybe like 30
04:02minutes so it seems like this stove doesn't have a pilot light I have a
04:07lighter which hopefully I don't burn any of my fingers or my hair that was
04:12actually pretty seamless this is a pandan leaf for those of you who are not
04:16familiar with it you want to make sure that you pat it dry because that is
04:19really dangerous if you just add the wet pandan leaf that can cause fire we're
04:25heating the oil up to 300 degrees I don't have a thermometer on me so I'm
04:29gonna test it by taking some of the flour like maybe one of these like bigger
04:34pieces and then just like putting it in the pot once it hit the oil it started to
04:38bubble right away so I think we're good I'm gonna drop in the pandan leaf and
04:43then very gingerly add the chicken to the pot I'm going to use some forks to
04:51turn the chicken around because we don't have any tongue I'm a professional and I'm
04:55still a little bit scared about getting the chicken out of this pot of oil if you
04:59can't get it out and it kind of like drops then the oil could potentially
05:02splatter in your face which you don't want to mess up the moneymaker wish me
05:06luck
05:16okay yay I didn't burn my face we want to make sure that the actual fried chicken
05:22cooks all the way throughout so that's why we do it at a low temperature at first
05:25and then we crank up the heat to 350 because we want the outside to get really
05:30nice and crispy oh okay we did it I'm not gonna lie I felt really defeated
05:37initially just because there was not much for me to work with but I powered
05:42through it and I made some delicious fried chicken so I feel relieved I have a
05:47message for Alyssa girl you need a chef's knife that is our finished product the
05:52Thai fried chicken done in a random apartment in the East Village
06:00thing I mean I didn't want to make sure of my time it was there
06:00poor feet and behind the poor foot and I need just to talk about my
