Ina Garten is such a big fan of fellow Food Network star Tyler Florence’s fried chicken recipe that she invited him to the set of her Cook Like a Pro show to demonstrate his spin on the classic dish.
While it was clear to see why this fried chicken caught Garten’s attention in the first place, what a good number of the longtime culinary star’s fans didn’t care for was Florence’s overall attitude while demonstrating the recipe.
Garten invited Florence on her show to demonstrate his super crispy fried chicken
The culinary personality explained in the Cook Like a Pro segment on Food Network that she brought fellow chef Tyler Florence on her show to share “the secrets of his famous crispy fried chicken.”
Florence’s fried chicken didn’t impress Garten by accident. It’s a layered-process recipe that proves itself in the first crunchy bite.
After butchering one entire fryer chicken, Florence calls for brining the pieces in a bowl filled with salty water. Brining, he explained to Garten, “takes the salt water into the interior cell structure of the chicken itself. You get a really juicy chicken and a very flavorful chicken from one end to the other.”
The chicken sits in the brine for a couple of hours. In the meantime, Florence places plenty of herbs and unpeeled garlic cloves into a large pot filled with cold peanut oil to “extract all these beautiful essential oils” that will infuse the oil with intense aroma and flavor. The herbs and garlic are all thoroughly removed from the oil as it heats up, and the items, now golden and crispy, serve as a gorgeous garnish for the final dish.
Once the chicken is done brining, it goes into what Florence calls a “buttermilk wash” of buttermilk and hot sauce, and it’s then dredged in a mixture of flour, garlic powder, onion powder, sweet paprika, cayenne, salt, and pepper.
Just “a few pieces at a time” of the chicken are placed in the hot oil, Florence explains, because crowding the pot with too many cold pieces of chicken would cause “the temperature to plummet.”
Ina Garten’s fans weren’t having Florence’s tone
As much as Tyler Florence’s fried chicken looked intoxicatingly delicious and crunchy, what wasn’t appetizing to many viewers of the video on Food Network’s YouTube channel was what they perceived as the chef’s rather pretentious manner toward Garten. Many of her fans’ comments on the channel could be summed up as ‘Does Tyler know who he’s talking to?
While it could be argued that Florence was simply fulfilling his purpose on Garten’s show, that is, demonstrating his recipe, fans’ remarks overwhelmingly had more to do with Florence’s behavior — and his colleague’s classy reaction to him.
One viewer noted, “I think I just fell in love with Ina again, after seeing how she graciously dealt with his mansplaining. #truequeen”
“I know he’s explaining it to Ina like she has no idea what she is doing so that the audience will understand why they are doing things, but seriously, you can’t talk to Ina like she has never made fried chicken before. If he needs to explain why he is doing something, have him say it directly to the camera,” another fan wrote.
Garten helped just a bit with Florence’s chicken dish
To viewers’ points, a couple of the tasks Florence seems to allow Garten to handle are breaking up a head of garlic and coating the raw chicken in the flour mixture. “Don’t miss anything,” he tells Garten, to which she understandably chuckles. It’s probably not lost on her that she could very well make fried chicken with her eyes shut. She asks him at one point, “How am I doing?” Fans caught on to the Barefoot Contessa star’s vibe with that remark.
“She was throwing in some sass when he was talking to her as if she’s brand damn new at this cooking thing. Good for her,” one person said.
Another added, “It’s like he’s watching over her to make sure she isn’t messing anything up, I’m sure she knows her way around the kitchen without being supervised!”
Check the Food Network video out for yourself and see if you agree with fans. And then make Tyler Florence’s chicken: it looks absolutely heavenly.
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