Fail! An Epic Fail!
We have a killer banquet dish that I figured would be awesome to translate to the home kitchen. Star Anise Chicken with Braised Fennel is our top seller for chicken in the banquets.
What we do is caramelize palm sugar, stop the caramel with garlic and ginger, then we add Chinese cut chicken legs. The idea is to get a sear from the hot sugar, and to concentrate the chicken flavor. Then we braise the works with star anise pods and orange juice.
Meanwhile, we braise fennel wedges in orange juice as well. Once the fennel is tender, we drain off the juice into the braising liquid of the chicken.
The chicken is just that damn good.
So, what went wrong with the home version?
The answer is, I over-thought the dish.
I thought it would be easier for everyone if I just did it in the crock-pot. Something simple to throw together, and to eat at the end of a hard day’s work.
Nothing ever is that simple.
It started out okay. I cut the fennel into wedges and lined the crock pot. Then I cut up the chicken, and placed it on top of the bed of fennel. In went the orange juice, star anise pods, and some teriyaki sauce I had in the fridge.
Can you already see where I was deviating from the plan? My original thought was that no one would want to caramelize the sugar, so why not just add teriyaki sauce. After all, the caramel is stopped by the ginger and garlic, essentially making a teriyaki sauce.
I put the dish on for 10 hours cooking time. That was the second mistake. I did that so I could go to sleep and take the dish off in the morning. The cooking time was way too long for this dish. I followed the same method I would to make a stock.
After the 10 hours, I put the crock-pot insert into the fridge and went to work. When I came home, I removed the fat that had risen to the top, placed the insert into the crock to warm it up for a few minutes.
Now, this is the second place I deviated from the original dish. I was thinking to deboning the chicken, make a stir fry with vegetables, add in the chicken pieces, reduce the sauce and thicken.
The idea was a nice dish over rice.
When I pulled the chicken out of the crock pot, I found that the fennel was completely cooked. Not just tender, but almost mushy. Damn. I strained the juice out, and set it into a pot to reduce. I tossed in a couple more star anise pods, with some Shoaxing wine. I was not happy with the flavor profile out of the crock pot. Again, I was over-thinking.
I got some oil hot in my wok, and dumped in my stir-fry vegetables. A quick saute, and all was good. The smell was fantastic! The chicken went into the wok, and finally, I strained the sauce inside.
Then it went horribly wrong.
When you gently cook chicken over a long time in a broth, it becomes very tender. Chicken meat is not tough to begin with, but a low and slow method will always result in very tender chicken. Why did I remove the bones from the chicken? The better option would be to serve it more in the original style – saute the vegetables, add in the sauce, and then serve the chicken on top.
Everything sort of melted in the wok. After a couple of stirs, it pretty much resembled someone’s vomit that still had chunks of whole vegetables in it.
I could not even serve it to the dog. It went into the garbage, and I went to the garbage shack, the one with the Golden Arches.
Here is a picture of an epic fail:
Dude, Fail! Did someone vomit in that dish?
It is important that we all learn from our failures. I have a string of them behind me. I got to where I am today by failing. A lot. The key is – learning from your fails, and never repeating them.
What did I learn today?
Mise en place. You need to know what you are doing, and why before hand. It does not just mean ingredients. I was kind of winging it, and I over-thought my dish at every step. Had I sat down and thought about it first, I might have realized how silly it was.
If you are on auto pilot, sometimes you will crash. This goes with the above statement. See, had I sat down and thought the steps through, I would have seen the pitfalls before they came, and realized where the dish could go wrong, and take steps to prevent them.
Sometimes the original way is the best. I tried screwing with a recipe that I know works to make it easier to execute. I took shortcuts, and I got burned for it. That happens.
I will post the recipe in its original format tomorrow.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
It’s nice to know things like this happen to professionals, too. I am very guilty of “over-thinking” dishes, and doing too much to try and “rescue” things that aren’t going so well.
@Jan – Oh yes, I could tell you about failure, it happens to prefessionals all the time. My philosphy in food is to not over-complicate things. A dish like today’s example reminds me of why. Simplicity can be elevated to sublime, but once you start to over-think things, it can go south pretty fast as well. There just was no rescuing that dish. I find it is ironic that in trying to make something simpler, I actually complicated things.
I had the same thoughts a Jan — nice to know that pro chefs fail at times too! Thanks for admitting that Jason — many people hate to own up to their failures. I like to think the same as you — learn from them, and don’t repeat them. In my professional life (I run a training department) I preach that all the time. Need to know it’s okay to fail in my kitchen as well.
@John K. – I love the quote by Oscar Wilde – “Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.”