- Mm-mm! (slaps counter)
(triumphant music)
- Hello, everybody, it's Barry here.
Hope you are well, wherever you are in the world.
Welcome to our kitchen.
Today, I am extremely excited.
Hopefully, I'm always excited in my videos,
but today, very excited, indeed,
because you might remember recently,
we did the homemade TGI Friday's
Jack Daniels Chicken Strips.
Absolutely superb. (cheerful music)
Now in that video, I teased the fact,
well, I made myself sound like I go there all the time.
I think I've only been there like maybe 10 times in my life.
It's quite far away from me,
but whenever I go there, we normally get that,
sometimes this Cajun chicken prawn pasta thing,
which we might make another day, based on today.
Because the other thing that I really like
is they do these Deep Fried Green Bean Fries,
and they are so, so good.
I'm literally, I walked Boston this morning.
I was so excited, I'm nearly skipping with the leaves, like.
I don't know if this is gonna work,
but I found one of these copycat recipes.
Some of you guys have sent me
different versions over the years.
And finally, today,
we're gonna break that duck.
A phrase that some of you might not be aware of,
but that is a phrase.
And hopefully, smash this out of the park.
I'm additionally gonna make
the dip that comes alongside it,
and for that you need a ranch dressing,
which isn't that easy to get in the UK.
There are similar ones and I can order it online
but I wanted to make my own from scratch.
And in fact, that's what we're gonna do first.
Before we make the dip, there we go.
That is them.
You can see the dip in the background.
It's not just ranch,
it's got a little other tweaks with it as well,
a little bit of cucumber in there too,
but this is,
this is the body, this is the main vessel.
Come on, (knocks) let's go.
All right, homemade ranch dressing.
I've tried it many times, but never made it myself.
The body of it is actually these
three white ingredients here.
Hopefully, the camera will show
what just looks like a big pile of snow.
The main bulk of it is buttermilk,
and then there's a little less mayonnaise,
then an even littler less sour cream.
We've also got some pepper, some salt,
onion powder, garlic powder, parsley, chives.
But the other thing is dil,
and I really love (sniffs) fresh dil.
Tend to have it a lot with salmon and stuff like that,
but I blooming love it.
But it does say to get dried stuff.
I wanted to go fresh.
It's no big dil. (exhales)
"An excellent spoon."
There we are, hi, Stuart. (chuckles)
Let's mix this all together.
And the reason I'm making this now,
is like just like any other dip,
it's gotta be cold, hasn't it?
So we can get this done,
get it chilled, ready for dunkage.
But of course, we can tweak it.
Oh!
Oh my gosh.
(laughs) Oh, that is amazing! (squeals)
But the TGI's don't just use ranch.
They enhance it with this.
Two tablespoons of horseradish.
That's probably gonna give it a little bit of heat.
Went through a phase of putting it on, like everything.
Most recent I've done with that, was Frank's Hot Sauce.
I was going through a phase.
No matter what we have for tea,
I was just putting hot sauce on it,
and it was wonderful. (laughs)
I'm just wondering what the next thing will be.
Sriracha was another one, but maybe yellow mustard.
I'm getting a little bit of fond of that at the moment.
I don't know.
So this is half a cucumber.
(grater patters at high speed)
Sha-ding!
I don't know, oh my gosh!
It's cucumber juice on it.
Let's get the cucumber juice in, why not?
Let's be inclusive.
So we just mix that through like that.
(mixture slopping)
Oh, wow!
Ooh!
Mm.
It's got a nice bit of texture now, in there,
with the cucumber.
And the horseradish has given it
like a little bit of tang, a little bit of spank,
a little bit of pizazz, yeah?
Oh, it almost feels like you've added lemon juice
but it's more like the slight heat,
the horseradish-ness in there.
Nice.
So that's it.
That is the dip done.
I'm gonna shove that in the fridge.
Let's Wrapmaster it.
(wrap crinkling) (soft music)
Uh, yeah, in the fridge.
Just to say, I looked at that recipe when you sent me.
And sometimes, I don't know if it's just me,
but maybe you guys get put off with it too.
I used to find this thing.
If a recipe had more than like eight ingredients,
I'd kind of lose interest.
And for that dip alone, it was like, uh.
But I wanted it to be authentic.
And a lot of that, I generally tend
to have in the house anyway.
Don't get me wrong, if you're not a ranch fan,
you just do any other dip that you like.
Or you could just get some online
and just buy a teeny weeny bit.
But that tasted so good.
Right, the headline act of this video,
beans.
Have I got a blob on that lens again?
I dunno, I can see a few little marks.
All right, green beans.
These were 60p a bag, which I thought wasn't too bad.
And obviously, you can get them
in the freezer aisle as well.
Or, of course, the ultimate would be to grow them yourself.
Now normally, you would simmer these in some water,
but down here,
Oh no, no, no.
We're gonna simmer it.
This is some chicken stock.
We cook them, boil them.
We're gonna boil them for about five minutes in there,
just to soften it.
So not water getting in there.
but I don't, I mean, I assume that's gonna
drive some flavour in there.
It's like sometimes I've cooked like pasta
and rice with a stock cube in it.
I'm not sure if that does anything.
Risotto probably would, it'd absorb that flavour.
But this is for the beans, it's pretty cool.
(gas hob hissing) (igniter clicking)
Nah, I can't find it.
I actually, oh no.
I gave it away to someone on Patreon.
I did have an actual gadget for green beans,
but I'm gonna trim the ends.
I'm sure I could do this much quicker with a knife,
but I'm finding it very therapeutic
to just take the top and bottom off with a set of scissors.
(scissors snipping) (soft music)
Okay, I'm three in and I'm bored already.
I'm gonna do it with a knife, but (chuckles) just,
just trim the ends off and give 'em a wash, all right?
(water gushing)
And into that stock.
B-E-A-U-tiful.
The smell. (sniffs)
I kind of forget that it's chicken stock in there.
It's like, okay.
We're gonna let it gently similar there,
for about five minutes,
and then, to stop it cooking,
we don't wanna over...
Oh.
First lesson of beans, you don't wanna overcook your beans!
After five minutes,
which is the typical package instructions anyway,
five to six, we'll do five.
Be crazy.
Put it into cold water just to stop them cooking anymore.
That's had five minutes bubbling away.
(dramatic electro music) The beans are ready.
The pug is ready.
The water is ready.
I've gotta drain it off,
so I'm not ready, hang on.
They've got a little bit more puffed up.
And, I don't know if it's just me,
if they've taken a teeny bit of colour, maybe not.
They certainly look nice and cooked though, don't they?
Whoa.
And everything was calm.
So, these get cooled down.
Oh, it's kinda like this weird, like, warm and cold feeling.
Like being one end of the bathtub.
But they can kind of sit there now.
And in fact, you could do this stage of the recipe,
then freeze them.
But what we'll do is, well now they are cooled down,
we can pat them dry but we'll get the other bits ready.
Folks, there's a little bit of deja vu, really.
We've got some pepper again.
We've got some salt again.
I'm using my smoked salt that I really like, it's nice.
Onion powder, garlic powder.
Now this is gonna be our dredge,
that we, you know when you're doing battering stuff,
you sometimes have like the egg in the milk.
In fact, that's what we do have.
And you can sometimes season that
or we can season the flour.
We have just basically seasoned the flour
that it gets rolled in.
But apparently, rather than just going, meh-
That's my action for doing a spoon or stirring it.
Meh.
We stick it into a food processor,
to blend it up and break it down
and make it a little bit more fine,
especially the pepper and the salt, actually.
And when I have had them in the past,
the coating is nice and thin.
It's not too chunky, it's kind of smooth.
So hopefully, this will help that.
I don't really care either way, to be honest.
I mean, it's going well so far.
(cheerful music) (mixer whirring)
(parts tapping)
Looks exactly the same to me.
It doesn't tell me to do this
but I might be completely overkill now,
and pass it through a sieve into our plate for the dredge.
The dredge, ah!
Completely unnecessary.
(bowl tapping)
But why the heck not?
It's probably my motto in life as well.
So the beans, which are gonna be dried,
will get dredged in this,
to wrap it in the flavour for frying.
But before we put it in this,
we're gonna put it in a mixture of egg and milk.
Normally, we'll just do egg,
but the recipe be said milk too,
so let's whiskey whisk.
(eggshell cracks) (mixture plops)
I can't remember if I said it, with the stock.
You don't actually have to use chicken stock.
If you're vegetarian, you use vegetable stock,
or maybe,
I mean, I think it's great that you're possibly
adding more flavour by doing that.
Just use water if you want.
(cheerful music) (whisk clanking)
Wakka-wakka-wakka.
Actually, for research...
(green bean crunching)
Nope.
Not getting any of that chicken flavour at all,
but if you've got a stock cube lying around, do it anyway.
So I'll just get some more kitchen towel on top (patting)
and just pat it.
That is dry, that will do.
(bean patters on floor)
So we will take one bean.
I will show you this,
I'll be doing it much quicker, normally.
But just a little bit of that egg on there
and then straight in,
and then use your dry hand just to lightly coat it.
And then we place it onto a lined baking tray.
Doesn't have to be a Barry Lewis baking tray
but it helps.
All right, that is them all coated.
And it's not absorbing the flour too much.
It's doing really well holding it on there.
This is my freezer.
It goes in there for half an hour.
Patreon will know this.
One of the bonus videos I did was that Snoop Dogg bacon.
I kind of hope with this,
like what happened with the Billionaires Bacon.
This won't make any sense to some of you guys,
but the sugar dissolved completely, but it was still there.
I'm hoping with this, we still see the flour,
and part of my thinking right now,
we're about to get the fryer ready,
so that is the next step.
I think,
when these get delivered to the restaurants, in TGI's,
this is the stage they're at.
So again, you could get to this point
and have 'em in your freezer, like a big bulk bag
and then just chuck 'em in your freezer,
and Bob's your uncle.
Whenever I say that, I get so many comments,
Bob literally is my uncle, okay.
Look, who's back.
My absolute bargain fryer. - Cheapo.
- If you missed that video, do check it out.
In fact, I've actually got a fondue maker from them,
which will be a future video very, very soon,
where you'd like cook steak and cheese on it and stuff.
Very exciting, indeed.
Got our basket, it's warmed to 350,
and hopefully, if the flour's stuck on there
we can stick a few in there
and jolly well give this a go.
I'm gonna just coat the bottom layer
and I'll put the other ones back in the freezer.
With it being floury, I've got a feeling
it might be a little bit messy, but hey ho.
(oil sizzles gently) Ooh, cheeky.
(oil sizzling loudly)
It smells like I'm frying celery.
That has had actually, it says 90 seconds.
It's had two minutes,
and I've got a nice, golden brown colour on there.
(sighs) Yeah, I am happy with that.
My only thing is that I think it's lost
a little bit of the coating.
'Cause the other beans are back in the freezer,
I'm gonna dredge them again in a bit more flour
and see if that helps
just to get a bit more crispness on there.
See how these are a bit more coated?
Let's try that.
(oil sizzling)
Ah-ha.
Yes.
Oh my gosh, that is much better.
Crispy.
So down on a kitchen towel.
If you're wondering where the other ones are,
I've dredged them again in the flour,
and I think that really has made a difference.
But I'm keeping them in the freezer.
Gonna fry up some more batches.
It gets pretty dangerous.
Even with my best mate, that best fryer.
It needs a name, actually.
Any suggestions for the fryer?
Fryer Tuck? (laughs)
I'll get 'em all done
and then we get the taste 'em.
(chef's kiss smacks)
Folks, change of plan.
I just got that second batch out.
And whilst I was really confident,
I've taken them out,
and the colour,
I think by doing that second coating on it.
If I just try this one.
So what I've done there
is re-dredged the rest of the beans I had.
I literally washed them under the tap.
Dunked them in egg again,
but this time, I've made a new mix,
with some fine breadcrumbs in it as well,
so a little bit of surface area.
And oh my gosh, that's looking much better.
(oil sizzling) So if that is the case,
I will tweak the recipe in my write up
and put that on there,
because we want to get 'em right.
(oil sizzling)
Oh, there we go.
I am so much more happier with that.
Look at that.
They've got the colour.
They've got that even coating.
These were too thick.
These were slightly too thin.
And I'm quite lucky,
'cause I just randomly had this like,
old pot of golden breadcrumbs.
Of course I could just whizz up some bread.
But you can see, it's given it
a nice, good coating on there.
So one princess layer, but put the breadcrumbs in.
Let's just quickly show you, these are the three stages
of fried green beans we've done today.
So we started off with these ones,
where we had that real nice, thin layer on there,
but almost too thin, okay.
So we freezered it, gave it it's time, fried it,
and some of the coating fell off.
Although the oil did stay pretty clean, to be fair.
So it's okay, there's a nice dusting on there,
but you can probably see a little bit
too much green bean than you would hope.
In the middle,
we kind of just dredged it again
and just put some more flour on it,
and they've become like more like rock hard.
The coating on there is so firm,
it's almost like an edible cigar.
But these ones, just by adding some breadcrumbs,
has really given it...
You've got the little bit of green bean still showing,
but that nice, thin, speckled edge on there,
and ultimately, just one layer.
Folks, it is absolutely hammering down now.
(thunder rumbling) But look,
we've got our dunky thing here.
I just did a thumbnail, that's why it's already dunked.
Oh my gosh.
Dunky thing, AKA the homemade ranch,
with the enhanced horseradish and cucumber.
(rain pattering on skylight)
Oh my Gosh.
Mm-mm! (slaps counter)
Honestly,
honestly, honestly,
that is so good.
Oh my gosh.
Ah.
Mm!
You've got this lovely, snappy crunch on there.
Slightly flavoured batter,
and then like this comforting blanket of beans,
drenched in this slightly tangy, fresh ranch.
It's cold, it's clings to it better now.
That is so, so good.
And as the rain hammers down,
I'm actually quite proud of myself
that I didn't just stick with the first version,
because it would've been all right.
In fact, (bean crunches)
it's alright.
But half of it is falling off.
Whereas this, with that breadcrumb evenly wrapped around,
it gives it that coverage
and it helps it hold and colours it quite consistently.
(slaps counter) We've done it.
Oh my gosh!
Boston, we've done it!
The other thing I'm happy about is the oil.
I'm really happy about the oil,
because it was actually quite clean
so we can reuse it again another day.
And we absolutely nailed this,
so it was worth persisting.
If you like the Jack Daniels chicken though,
do check out that recipe,
because just like this, it was worth...
I mean, I didn't need to tweak that,
it was just bang on straight away.
But with this, a little, few more tweaks,
and I am over, over the moon with how this turned out.
So, that's it folks,
if you do try it, send me a photo
on your social media platform of choice.
I love to see your attempts.
That's the whole reason I do this channel.
Don't forget to subscribe if you're not already.
Make sure your notifications are turned on,
and let me know anything,
and perhaps, actually, TGI stuff particularly,
like the Cajun Chicken Pasta. (smacks)
That might be the next one.
You'd like to see next,
and I'll see you again next time.
Bye!
♪ 'Cause cooking is nice ♪
♪ 'Cause cooking is nice, nice, nice, nice ♪
Folks, I haven't been to TGI Friday's for quite a while,
and unless it could just be localised,
and I might not be looking too accurately.
Yep, Sesame Chicken Strips, like we've done.
I cannot see the green beans on there anymore.
Oh my gosh.
Which makes this even better.
Surely they must still do them?
That's amazing.
Oh my gosh.
So if they don't,
brilliant, make them.
If they do,
well, make them anyway. (laughs)