The Secret Cheesesteak Only Philly Locals Actually Order

[00:02] think the cheesesteak conversation begins and ends with beef. But there's a shadow version of this sandwich, a hidden gem that locals keep to themselves. And I only discovered it from my favorite Philly degenerate over

[00:16] at the RU Garbage Podcast. And that sandwich is the chicken cheesesteak. >> Chicken cheesesteak with mayo? >> Yeah, but yeah, chicken chicken >> To the rest of us, it doesn't exist. But today we become locals and we're taking

[00:28] this hidden little delicacy and making major technical upgrades. We're moving past that dry chicken onto something better. This is the confit buffalo chicken cheesesteak. Now usually this is made with like a sliced or diced chicken

[00:42] breast. But again, I'm an outsider, so I'm starting from first principles here. And I want a juicy chicken with good texture without any worry of overcooking improvement, we're upgrading the chicken. And this is some confit chicken

[00:55] thighs that I cooked last night. It's literally the easiest thing you could ever do. And it's kind of important that you do this in advance, which I will explain later. So you want to take your thighs and season them with salt and

[01:07] allow that chicken time in the fridge to dry out and absorb that salt and allow it to penetrate the chicken all the way through. Overnight is best, but at least for a few hours. Then we're just going to take them and place them into a pot

[01:20] and submerge them with olive oil. I'm just going to add a few garlic cloves. I'm going to then bring it up to a very gentle simmer. You just want to see an occasional bubble breaching the surface. Too hot and you're just frying the

[01:34] you're at the right temp, put a lid on and place it in a 225° oven and allow that chicken to cook until it's fork tender and almost ready to fall apart, but still holding together. I pull it around 185 to 190,

[01:49] which yields the right tenderness and the right amount of texture. You really shouldn't feel much resistance when you poke it with a thermometer. Then allow to cool down a bit, remove it from the oil. Once it's fully cool, we can wrap

[02:03] it up, place it in the fridge, and it's ready to be manipulated the next day. And this is what the chicken looks like the next day. That collagen and all that fat has firmed up. Now, if hot, would shred, but now that it's firm, we can

[02:15] get really clean dices to maintain texture and juiciness and tenderness. So, we want to prep the chicken first. I'm just going to cut strips and then cut them into a dice. If you want to make it a finer dice,

[02:28] got a nice smaller dice. You can really control the texture this way. You can feel they're soft and moist, so I don't have to worry about overcooking them. were hot, it would just sort of turn into shards rather than cubes. About

[02:43] sandwich, in my opinion. Now, to cook it, we still have that reserve oil we little bit of that. All the chicken juice kind of fell to the bottom, so I can just pull that oil. For the cheese, I'm going with American and then some

[02:57] Cooper Sharp American. More so cuz the color of the American is a little bit flavor of Cooper, though, can't be beat. Now, any single recipe like this one relies on your ability to source high-quality meats and proteins. Some

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[04:48] sauce left over from our wing episode, which if you have not seen, you should blue cheese dressing, which is going in the sandwich. In a bowl, about a half cup of mayo, and then a half cup of sour cream, or equal parts. For the liquids,

[05:02] about a cap of Worcestershire sauce, about a cap of white vinegar, maybe two caps. Teaspoon of onion powder, teaspoon of garlic powder, a tablespoon of Dijon cracked black pepper, and then in with some of the blue cheese. I don't like

[05:17] for this application, I kind of want it pipeable and smooth, so I'm going to throw it in a blender and puree it till it's nice and smooth.

[05:30] going to cook with the buffalo. Now, we're just going to make sort of like an umami seasoning to go with it. So, in a bowl, I'm just going to do about a pinch about half the amount of salt. We're going to add about a teaspoon of garlic

[05:44] powder, and then we're going to add about an equal amount of MSG. That's basically a seasoning you could use on anything. So round and amazing with that MSG. Gives certain things that salt doesn't give. Now, the new trend with

[05:57] Amoroso roll, but it's becoming increasingly popular to serve it on a seeded roll, which in the northeast are plentiful. So, I've got like two types of this one more, so I'm going to go with this.

[06:11] I'm going to cut the butt off and cut it open. Nice and soft and pliable and I and warm. You could sear it on the griddle, but I'm going to keep it like that. Once your pan or griddle is nice and hot around 375°

[06:25] take a bit of that confit oil and coat the pan with it. Then, go ahead and add your chicken and season it with that umami seasoning and begin tossing and searing the chicken for a few minutes just to warm it up. Now, it's already

[06:37] cooked, so all we're looking to do here is basically heat up the chicken and combine it with everything to form a homogeneous mass. Once that chicken is warmed up, hit it with some of that buffalo sauce, get it tossed up and

[06:50] cooking in that sauce almost glazing the pieces of chicken. Then, we can go ahead and start to add in the cheese. And I like to just totally cover that chicken with the slices of cheese and then start chopping

[07:03] it up and folding it to help melt that cheese and to almost glue everything together. Once all that cheese is melted, we can take out bread, hit the inside with some buffalo sauce and some blue cheese, and then we can start to

[07:16] scoop our chicken in and fill up the bread. little bit more blue cheese and a little bit more buffalo sauce, and there you have the buffalo chicken cheesesteak. Something I am certainly going to try

[07:31] again next time I'm in Philly. You got to taste the texture of the when it's overcooked or the wrong texture, and this is just right. You cheesesteak next to each other, I'll always go with the cheesesteak. But does

[07:45] that mean having a chicken cheesesteak in your arsenal is not valuable? Not saying that either. This is a very amazing recipe. It's a very good switch try it. Recipe's going to be down in the description, along with a link to my

[07:58] Patreon where all of my episodes are early and ad-free, as well as we run our cooking school over there. Two lessons a month, live stream, homework, I kick have today. I'll see you next time. Until then, take care of yourself and go

[08:11] feed yourself. >> Brown money, brown money, yellow.