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Alison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart live from the WNYC Studios in SoHo. Thank you for sharing part of your day with us. First of all, I want to say we're thinking about everybody in the Hudson Valley going through this terrible weather situation. Please take care of yourselves. I also want to shout out to Lucy Yu, the founder of Yu & Me bookstore in Chinatown.

On the fourth of July, there was a fire in the building. It's a beautiful, little independent bookstore. I understand there was a GoFundMe and people have turned out in droves to support Lucy and the bookstore, so we're thinking of Yu as well. Good on you, New York community, for supporting a local independent bookstore in need. Hey, we have some great conversations on tap this week.

We'll have some live in-studio performances from Blake Mills, Little Dragon, and Lloyd Cole. We're going to have actor Sterling K. Brown and Mark Duplass. They'll be in the studio to talk about their new film Biosphere, which is a science-fiction comedy about friendship and survival, and we'll learn more about the just-opened new addition to the Louis Armstrong House Museum in Queens. Two of its staff will join us. That is happening later in the week. Now, let's get this hour started with some Kung Pao chicken.

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Alison Stewart: After serving as the food and drinks editor for the South China Morning Post, Hong Kong's internationally-renowned English daily newspaper for almost 25 years, Susan Jung published a cookbook about one of her favorite foods, fried chicken. It is called Kung Pao and Beyond: Fried Chicken Recipes from East and Southeast Asia. In the introduction, Jung writes, "In this part of the world, fried chicken goes far beyond the 11 herbs and spices of the famous American fast food chain." The book is an ode to how diverse fried chicken can be, showcasing 60 recipes using different batters and seasonings.

There's Korean fire chicken, Vietnamese butter wings. There's also a section for accompaniments as well as Korean pickled white radish, Vietnamese pickled vegetables, and sesame garlic cucumbers. Bon Appétit lists the cookbook as one of the 23 best cookbooks of the spring of '23. It is titled Kung Pao and Beyond: Fried Chicken Recipes from East and Southeast Asia. Author Susan Jung joins us to discuss. She's currently a food columnist for Vogue in Hong Kong, where she joins us from now where it's 1:00 in the morning. Thank you so much for staying up.

Susan Jung: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Alison Stewart: Listeners, we'd like for you to join this conversation. If you're someone who loves fried chicken, we want to hear about it. What's your method? Do you use egg, milk, flour? Are you a paper-bag person? What do you like to serve with your fried chicken? Maybe you have questions for Susan Jung about frying chicken. You can give us a call, 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. You can call and be on the air or you can text us at that number or you can reach out to us on Twitter, Instagram. Our social media handle is @AllOfItWNYC. In your two decades of serving as a food and wine editor, you said that your editor would ask you for more fried chicken recipes. Susan, why was this?

Susan Jung: Well, I wrote a weekly recipe column for the SCMP. I actually held myself back from writing more fried chicken recipes. I said I can't have too many fried chicken recipes. Then one of my colleagues said, "Susan, your fried chicken recipes do really well online. I think you should write more fried chicken recipes." I said, "Oh, okay." He said, "You should also write a book on fried chicken." I had never ever considered that, but I thought, "What a great idea," so I did.

Alison Stewart: Where did you start? Where do you start when you want to write a book about fried chicken?

Susan Jung: Well, as I started with my mom's wings because that is such a vivid memory of something I ate when I was a kid, my mother was a really good home cook. Every once in a while, she would make her famous chicken wings. My brothers and I just love these wings. Occasionally, she would ask us, "What do you want for dinner?" We'd always ask for Mom's wings. That's the first recipe in the book.

Alison Stewart: What distinguishes your mom's wings from all other wings?

Susan Jung: Well, I don't know why they're so good. The thing is they're quite easy. Unlike most of the recipes in the book where the meat is marinated, mom's wings are just floured, double fried as most of the recipes are, and then the seasoning is put on afterwards. It's a mixture of soy sauce, ginger, garlic, and sugar. They're coated in this sauce, which probably takes the crispness out of the skin, but then they're baked, which we crisp them. What's good about them is that you can do most of the work up to the baking in advance.

Alison Stewart: You said garlic and ginger. Is it heavy on one or the other or is it balanced?

Susan Jung: It's whatever you want. Some people love a lot of garlic, so you can add more if you want. I think as with all recipes, the author's not in the kitchen with you, so you can adapt them to your taste.

Alison Stewart: What does baking the wings after frying them do? You mentioned that you bake this version of your mother's wings.

Susan Jung: It reheats the wings and also crisps up the skin again. When you first dip them in the soy sauce mixture, the skin becomes soggy and it's shiny. When you bake them, it adheres to the meat better, the coating, the soy sauce coating, and it crisps up the skin.

Alison Stewart: When you think about making these wings when you make them, do you make a lot of wings or is this something where you just make enough for yourself or a partner?

Susan Jung: You can. My recipes, because I'm used to cooking for-- If we're cooking for a dinner party and the Asian way of doing things is like it's doesn't work one to one. You don't have one dish for every person. If you have six people over, you're probably going to have four dishes plus vegetables and rice. My chicken wings recipes or, actually, all the recipes call for about 800 grams to 1 kilo of meat.

That's about 500 grams to-- I can't remember American measurements anymore. I'm thinking in kilos and metric weights. Anyway, it makes a lot of food, but you can always have the recipe. The thing you have to remember is cold fried chicken is delicious. Leftover fried chicken is like having treasure in your fridge. It's something you want. If you make too much, it doesn't matter because you could eat it the next day.

Alison Stewart: We have a text from someone whose name is Latoya Glickman and it says, "My name is Latoya Glickman and it's my birthday. What type of fried chicken should I have for my birthday dinner?" What suggestion would you have? [laughs]

Susan Jung: Happy birthday. What do they like? If you want something that's easy, there's lots of recipes in the book that are very easy. Mom's chicken wings. There are some recipes that require a little bit more work. If it's your birthday today, you won't be able to make them today because they have to be marinated overnight. The chicken poppers with instant noodle coating is fantastic and it's a very easy dish. It's probably the easiest dish in my book. There's a lot of recipes in the book that you can make within a day, within a couple of hours. Just page through the book and see what appeals to you.

Alison Stewart: I want to ask you about that instant noodle coating, chicken poppers with instant noodle coating, which you came up after listening to two friends. What was that initial conversation about?

Susan Jung: Well, I love instant noodles and I know that's not very fruity. I don't know if people are going to hate me for this, but I really love instant noodles because I think they're far beyond what a lot of people think of them as, as just something cheap that college students eat. There are so many different flavors that you can get in instant noodles and they're not necessarily cheap.

For me, this recipe came out when two of my friends were talking about instant noodles. One was saying that she'd never eat my favorite. The one that I tend to most, which is Nongshim Shin Ramyun. It's very spicy. It's from Korea. Another friend was talking about how he would just open a packet of instant noodles and dip it into the seasoning mix and eat it as a snack. I thought, "Oh, that would make a really interesting coating."

I went home and I actually had a pack of these instant noodles in my fridge or in my cupboard. I made it and it was the easiest recipe. You just put the noodles themselves into the food processor and they blitz them until they're about the size of rice grains. It doesn't turn into a powder. Then you add the coating or, sorry, the seasoning mix, the dry seasoning mix, and you dip it in egg and then the instant noodles. It adheres and you fry it.

Alison Stewart: Wow.

Susan Jung: They're really addictive.

Alison Stewart: It sounds so easy. To your point, easy to do. I noticed that it says you butter chicken fries for this recipe. Why do you do that?

Susan Jung: You only do that because chicken isn't like a nice even steak. Some parts are thick and some parts are thin. This goes for all the recipes in the book. You want to make the pieces as evenly thick as possible so that when you fry, you're not frying one piece of chicken that's really big and one piece of chicken that's really thin. You want to try to make it as even as possible. I'm not obsessive about it, but you just want to make it as even as possible so that it fries more evenly.

Alison Stewart: Let's take a call. Colette is calling in from Brooklyn. Hi, Colette. Thank you for calling All Of It. You're on the air.

Colette: Hi. Thank you for taking my call. Can you hear me okay?

Alison Stewart: Hear you great.

Colette: Great. I just wanted to mention that I heard and I've read in several places that fried chicken was brought to Korea during the Korean War by Black soldiers. That's one. Two, I'm trying to get away from white flour, so I've been experimenting with different flours. So far, chickpea flour is fantastic for battering and frying. I don't eat meat, but I batter like really meaty mushrooms, trumpet. Last night, I did a big cluster of oyster mushrooms. You would think you were eating fried chicken. That's it.

Alison Stewart: Colette, thank you for calling in. Colette brings up an interesting question, which I was going to actually ask about is the different kinds of flour. I noticed there's sweet potato flour sometimes mentioned in your recipe, Susan. Sometimes it's white flour. What difference does the flour choice make?

Susan Jung: I think the flour, the coating, whatever dry coating you use is really important because it does change the texture of the finished product. I know that in the West, most of the Southern fried chicken recipes are wheat flour. I started experimenting with wheat flour. I noticed that cake flour, something with a lower gluten content, works better. Also, there's this coating that I love called Gogi powder. It's from Thailand. It's a coating mix.

Very helpfully, they put on the ingredients list, the proportions of what they use. They use wheat flour and what they just call starch, so it's very vague, baking powder and salt. I started using that as my base. I wanted to make a homemade product in case people couldn't find this. I started experimenting with different proportions of flour. I started off by using cake flour because, like I said, it makes a better coating than a harder wheat flour, one of the higher gluten content.

Then I started mixing in other flours like rice flour, sweet potato flour, potato flour, water chestnut flour, and glutenous rice flour. They all have a different texture. They all give a different product. That's a recipe that I gave in the end of the book, my basic coating mix. By using the basic coating mix with whatever secondary flour I call for in the book or if you want to experiment with more, you can do that.

You also get a different coating if it's a batter, if you turn the basic coating mix into a batter by mixing in cold water. You also get an even crispier coating if you add a bit of vinegar. For some of the dishes that you want to have a really hard crispy coating even though the chicken is sauced like a sweet and sour, then you add vinegar to the basic coating mix and water.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Susan Jung. The name of the book is Kung Pao and Beyond: Fried Chicken Recipes from East and Southeast Asia. Listeners, phone lines are open to you. Are you a lover of fried chicken? What are unique recipes you've heard or used to fry chicken? Tell us how you go about it or maybe you have a question for Susan Jung about frying chicken. Our phone number is 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. You can call us up and get on the air or you can text to us at that number. You can also reach out on social media. Susan, we have a fan of yours on Line 2, Emily calling in from Randolph, New Jersey. Hi, Emily.

Emily: Hi, how are you?

Alison Stewart: Doing well. You are on the air with Susan Jung.

Emily: Thank you so much.

Susan Jung: Hi, Emily.

Emily: I am just beyond excited. Hi, Susan. I'm just beyond excited. When Alison said, "Oh, we have a guest from South China Morning Post," I'm like, "Oh yes, I have to call." Anyway, I'm excited because I used to live in Hong Kong, which was like 20-something years ago already. I know that you're making the fried chicken and we love fried chicken. Unfortunately, my fried chicken is always the usual suspect, which is salt with soy sauce, sugar, garlic, ginger, and green onion, which is good but boring. When I heard that you have all these things going on, I was like, "Yes, I have to try." The other thing is I'm saying that right now, I'm mumbling because I'm too excited.

Alison Stewart: [laughs] That's okay. Susan, do you have a suggestion of just a wow of a fried chicken recipe, the opposite of the basics? We love the basics. They're comfortable. They taste good, but something that's completely out there and wild that we can suggest for Emily.

Susan Jung: The basics are fantastic. What you just said with the soy sauce, ginger, garlic, spring onions, that is such a basic mixture of ingredients for a lot of Chinese and Korean and Japanese dishes. To me, that sounds really delicious. There are so many other recipes in this book. There's garlic chicken wings. There are several different types of Korean fried chicken that you can make and they're not difficult. There's cola wings, which uses a soft drink. I won't name a brand, but it uses a cola soft drink.

The only recommendation on that, actually, I have to be really insistent, don't use a cola with fake sugar. It has to be the regular classic soft drink with sugar because, otherwise, it enhances the-- I actually really dislike any kind of artificial sweetener. To me, if you make the cola wings with cola with artificial sweetener, it doesn't taste good. Just use the one with sugar. There are so many different recipes in the book. There's Vietnamese butter chicken wings, which I just love. They're very buttery.

Then there's Chinese-American deli fried chicken, which uses the same ingredients, ginger, sugar, soy sauce, garlic. It's basically the same ingredients as mom's chicken wings, except the result is entirely different because this one has a batter. Even if you use those basic ingredients, you can change the flavor and the crispness of the wing by whatever batter you use, whatever coating you use. If you're using a larger piece of chicken versus a smaller piece of chicken, it really does change.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Susan Jung. The name of the book is Kung Pao and Beyond: Fried Chicken Recipes from East and Southeast Asia. After the break, we'll talk cooking technique. We'll talk oil. We'll talk the best parts of the chicken and get to more of your calls and questions. 212-433-WNYC is the phone number and the text line. We'll have more with Susan Jung after a quick break. This is All Of It.

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Alison Stewart: You are listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. My guest this hour is Susan Jung. The name of her new cookbook is Kung Pao and Beyond: Fried Chicken Recipes from East and Southeast Asia. Our phone lines are open. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, that's the number where you can call and ask a question on air, or you can text to us on that number as well. We got a text from Chris from the Upper West Side. "Hi, this is Chris. Huge fan of the show." Thanks, Chris. "What is your favorite oil for frying chicken?" Susan, what is your favorite oil for frying chicken?

Susan Jung: I use either corn oil or canola oil. I actually prefer peanut oil, but because a lot of people have an allergy to peanuts, I don't use that. I just recommend using whatever neutral-tasting oil you like best. I wouldn't use anything that's really expensive because you're using about 750 milliliters, three cups of oil. To me, that's a bit of a waste of an expensive product. Just use whatever you like. Corn oil, I recommend canola, which they call rapeseed oil in the UK. I just found that out recently. Just use whatever you like. No olive oil, no sesame oil. Just use what you like.

Alison Stewart: Another text we got says, "I know that you can't quite beat frying chicken and oil, but what are some tips for using an air fryer? What's the best sort of dredge to use to get as close as possible to classic fried chicken?" This is a two-parter. How do you feel about air fryer, Susan?

Susan Jung: I didn't use one for this book because, number one, I don't have one, but also I was reading up on them. I know that there's a lot of different air fryers out there and some of them are more powerful than others. I didn't want to have to try to anticipate whatever problems you might have with an air fryer that's lesser power versus one that's more powerful. There's just too many variables in an air fryer for me to write a book about it.

That's why I figured out I would fry the chicken the old-fashioned way in oil. Because if you bring the oil up to the correct temperature and fry it, you're going to have the same result as somebody in another kitchen who's using the same technique rather than an air fryer, which you just don't know how that person's air fryer is going to work. If I had used an air fryer for this book, it would have taken a lot longer just because I'm not used to using one.

Alison Stewart: What is the temperature of the oil, that's the right temperature?

Susan Jung: The ideal frying temperature is 160 degrees for the first frying and first frying cooks the chicken almost all the way through. Then the second frying is at about 180 degrees. Let me look up the temperatures because, like I said, I don't know-- 160 is about 340 degrees Fahrenheit. I'm not sure about these. 180 is 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Those are the best frying temperatures. In the book, I recommend bringing the oil to a higher temperature than the temperature you're aiming for. If you're aiming for 160 degrees Celsius, then you bring the oil up to 180 degrees, which is 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Then when you add the chicken pieces, it cools it down so that it's at your ideal frying temperature.

Alison Stewart: We have a text asking about, "Is there any way to make the frying process less messy?"

Susan Jung: Yes, use a wok. The problem with using a straight-sided pot is that, first of all, you happen to look directly into the pot and your face is coming closer to the oil. If you're using a wok, which is wider, and because it's narrow at the bottom of the wok and it fans out, it's a wider surface area. If you use a wok, the oil is more contained in the wok. The oil splatters into the wok rather than splattering outside onto your work surface. There's never going to be a way to make fried chicken entirely splatter-free or entirely mess-free. By using a wok, you can contain the oil so that it's frying-- Like I said, the splatters land in the wok instead of your work surface.

Alison Stewart: Someone follows this question up with, "Any special utensils that you need?"

Susan Jung: Well, I have something that I absolutely love, which isn't absolutely necessary, but it makes life a lot easier. Having an oil thermometer is something that you would need to use to measure the oil, the temperature, or the temperature of the oil. I use an instant point-and-shoot infrared thing, which you just pointed at the surface of the oil and it tells you what it is. It's so much easier than having to submerge the oil thermometer into the oil. I love it. You don't have to have one that's very expensive. If you buy it at a hardware shop, it's cheaper than buying it at a gourmet cookware shop. That's my recommendation.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Susan Jung. The name of the book is Kung Pao and Beyond: Fried Chicken Recipes from East and Southeast Asia. In the book, you mentioned pre-salting the chicken. What does pre-salting the chicken do for the texture of the meat?

Susan Jung: Well, pre-salting is a technique that a lot of people use for other types of meat. If they're making a roast, if they're making steaks, they salt the meat before they cook it. It works very well for chicken as well because it allows the salt to penetrate. If you're pre-salting, the minimum time for a chicken nugget would be about 15 minutes, so it's not very time-consuming.

You can do it longer if it's easier for you, and then up to about 30 minutes if it's a larger piece of meat. When people pre-salt their meat for a steak or a roast, they might do it a day or two in advance, depending on the size of the roast. Pre-salting, just like I said, it allows the salt to penetrate into the meat so it's not just on the surface. It also really changes the texture, so the meat becomes firmer.

Alison Stewart: Do you have a specific kind of salt you'd like to use when you pre-salt?

Susan Jung: Well, because I recommend using weights rather than measurements, I use modern kosher salt. If you're using weights, 30 grams or an ounce of modern salt is going to be the same as diamond kosher salt, which has a flakier texture. It doesn't matter as long as you're weighing the ingredients. If you're using teaspoons or tablespoons, it becomes a little bit more problematic because the modern salt will be denser and weigh less than the diamond kosher salt. That's for me and it might be because I used to be a pastry chef. I think weighing ingredients is so much more accurate than using a teaspoon and tablespoon.

Alison Stewart: In the cookbook, you have a recipe called strawberry and pineapple sweet and sour chicken. You write that strawberry sweet and sour may sound like something drummed up by a chef who's trying too hard to be creative, but it's not anything new. When did you first try this dish?

Susan Jung: I tried it about 25 years ago. It might have existed even longer. To me, it sounded really weird at first. To me, it's much more complex than a sweet-and-sour chicken recipe that you might have that uses ketchup and pineapple juice. You're using strawberry jam and fresh pineapple. To me, it's a really delicious combination. The strawberries are sweet. The pineapple juice and vinegar make it a little bit more acidic, so it balances out. I think it's really delicious.

Alison Stewart: I want to say that someone who has called in is mentioning that if you are someone who can't have sugar, clear stevia-

Susan Jung: Oh really?

Alison Stewart: -can be helpful because there is no aftertaste.

Susan Jung: Okay, that's interesting. Maybe I'll try it. I think you would have to use less, because isn't stevia more potent, more intense than sugar? I'm not sure about that.

Alison Stewart: I'm not sure, but it doesn't affect blood sugar. I wanted to pass that tidbit along for somebody who I think was concerned. I do want to ask about in the back of the book, there's a section called "accompaniments." What are some accompanies you think really go well with fried chicken?

Susan Jung: Well, you can't live on fried chicken alone even if you love it as much as I do. In the West, they might-- I don't know. Do you serve it with fried potatoes or mashed potatoes? I'm not quite sure. I don't remember anymore.

Alison Stewart: I think it's salad. I think it's something with a little bit of something cool, with a little bit of cool to it.

Susan Jung: Coleslaw, right?

Alison Stewart: Yes.

Susan Jung: Pickles. I give pickle recipes, but they're Asian pickles. Pickled white radish, Korean pickled white radish, or Vietnamese pickled vegetables or kimchi. There's something that balances the oiliness of the fried chicken and it cleanses the palate. Then there's a Japanese potato salad, which I just love. It's something that I'm quite addicted to. I almost always have some in my fridge. Japanese potato salad uses Kewpie mayonnaise, which I think it has MSG. That's why it's so good. There's also macaroni salad, but a Hawaiian macaroni salad. There's just dishes that are slight variations on what you would eat in the West, but they're more Asian. They do the same thing by balancing the fried chicken.

Alison Stewart: The name of the book is Kung Pao and Beyond: Fried Chicken Recipes from East and Southeast Asia. We got a note that your former roommate, Beth Litt, just wanted to say hi.

Susan Jung: Oh my gosh, Beth.

Alison Stewart: [laughs] Well, she says hi. [laughs]

Susan Jung: We're together in New York. Oh.

Alison Stewart: Susan, thank you so much for joining us.

Susan Jung: Thank you.

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Alison Stewart: As you may know, our book club, Get Lit, is on summer vacation. We are in the process of preparing for a packed fall of new books, but we do have some special summer literary content for you. We're diving back into the classics and launching our new seasonal reading series, Summer School. Here's the gist. We all know this is a great time to head to a park or a beach and dig into a current bestseller. It's also a great time to revisit that classic, maybe a book you love or one you always wanted to read.

That is why, this summer, we are reading two classics, New York-based books, one in July and one in August, and invite you to join us to discuss each work on the radio with an expert. Like summer school but fun. Our July selection is by a famous New Yorker who had a complicated relationship with his city and his country, James Baldwin. We are reading his landmark 1962 novel, Another Country. The book is set in the intense heat that can only be felt in the peak of a New York summer and follows Rufus Scott, a jazz musician from Harlem who is immersed in the Bohemian Manhattan scene of the 1950s. Let's listen to a clip of James Baldwin's dramatic reading from the book.

James Balwin: "Rufus stood at the subway steps, looking down. For a wonder, especially at this hour, there was no one on the steps. The steps were empty. He wondered if the man in the booth would change his $5 bill. He started down. Then as the man gave him change and he began to move toward the turnstile, other people came, rushing and loud, pushing past him as though they were swimmers, and he nothing but an upright pole in the water."

"Then something began to awaken in him, something new. It increased his distance. It increased his pain. They were rushing to the platform, to the tracks. Something he had not thought of for many years, something he had never ceased to think of came back to him as he walked behind the crowd. The subway platform was a dangerous place, so he had always thought."

"It sloped downward toward the waiting tracks, and when he had been a little boy and stood on the platform beside his mother, he had not dared let go of her hand. He stood on the platform now alone with all these people, who were each of them alone and waited in a quiet calmness for the train. But suppose something somewhere failed and the yellow lights went out and no one could see any longer the platform's edge. Suppose these beams fell down."

"He saw the train in the tunnel rushing underwater. The motorman gone mad, gone blind, unable to decipher the lights, and the tracks gleaming and snarling senselessly upward forever. The train never stopping and the people screaming at windows and doors and turning on each other with all the accumulated fury of their blasphemed lives. Everything gone out of them but murder, breaking limb from limb, and splashing in blood with joy."

Alison Stewart: That was James Baldwin reading from his groundbreaking novel, Another Country. We're going to be discussing it on Thursday, July 13th, with professor and James Baldwin expert, Rich Blint. Go grab a copy of Another Country from your local library or indie bookstore and follow us on Instagram @AllOfItWNYC, where you can find more details and see prompts, discussion questions to think about, and little nuggets of information about the book. Join us for our All Of It Summer School when we read James Baldwin's Another Country and then discuss it on July 13th at 1:00 PM when we will take your questions and your thoughts. Happy reading.

 

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