- Hi I'm Rie, I'm a Tasty producer.
Today, I've been challenged to take a common food
and Make It Fancy.
Rules are, you must use the food given.
You can only add to the food.
You can buy whatever ingredients you wish.
Let's see what we are making fancy today.
Drumrolled (beating chest).
Flaming Hot Cheetos, I've had this before.
- [Producer] So, you like 'em?
- I've had it, I didn't say I like them.
It's a little bit overpowering for my palate.
I don't admire the color that much,
'cause it is a little bit artificial.
(crunching) If you like spicy food,
I can see it's addictive.
It's a nice crunch and there is like subtle sweetness.
Flavor is very strong so I think it will be
good ingredients for savory food.
I want to make something with a lot of different variety
but still want to take advantage of flaming hot flavor.
(gentle percussive music)
So, I got some great ideas and I'm excited to Make It Fancy.
All right, here is what I got.
Sour cream, chicken thighs, butter, buttermilk, microgreens,
honey, eggs, hot sauce.
From the pantry I got flour, oil, paprika, cayenne,
garlic powder, onion powder, sugar, brown sugar,
baking soda, baking powder, black pepper and mustard powder.
Okay, let's get started, Make It Fancy.
(gentle violin music)
First a cup of honey, I made a How Honey Is Made video,
so basically honey is bees vomit, that's what I learnt,
but it's very fascinating, now I'm not too afraid of bees,
now I know how to avoid being stung.
One cup of Cheetos, I'm going to use more Cheetos later,
so I'm just going to just keep this around,
make sure Cheetos are submerged with honey.
Each piece has a different shape, it's very unique.
We are heating up honey, so honey infuse the Cheetos flavor
and making a hot Cheetos honey.
Gentle simmer for like a couple of minutes
and turn off the heat, set aside for 15 to 20 minutes
and we are moving onto next step.
Grind some Hot Cheetos, so you want to grind it
until a very fine powder.
Use a quarter cup of Cheetos powder,
one teaspoon of cayenne, cayenne's very spicy.
Oh, I think I inhaled it (laughs).
So, if you don't like too spicy, you can just, oh (laughs).
You can just use Cheetos powder and skip cayenne.
Two tablespoon of paprika, one tablespoon of mustard powder,
One tablespoon of onion powder,
one tablespoon of garlic powder,
and one tablespoon of black pepper.
Mix, why is spicy food and hot food is associated with hell?
You know if you buy hot sauce, there's usually devil
or like a skull, so this is like a hell spice.
Spice mix, it's done, move on the next step.
I have bone in, skin on chicken thighs, pat dry,
just remove the moisture from chicken.
You place the chicken in a bowl and season with salt.
Six tablespoons of this spice mix.
Marinate the chicken, so I want to marinate
at least two hours to overnight and I'm going to cover
with plastic and rest in refrigerator.
The Cheetos, it's steeping about 15 minutes
and I'm going to strain, looks super red.
It's really good, it's like spicy honey.
We are going to use it later, we are gonna set this aside.
Half cup of canola oil, two tablespoon of the spice mix
I made earlier, two teaspoon of brown sugar.
So you just want it to heat up and make sure
the brown sugar is completely melted.
I think Cheetos is versatile in that way,
when you're making something spicy.
I don't think you can use for everything,
but you can substitute some spice mix with grounded Cheetos.
Brown sugar is melted and I'm going to set this aside,
moving onto next step.
Combine dry ingredients.
One and half cup of flour, three fourths cup
of ground Cheetos, two tablespoon of sugar,
one and half teaspoon of baking powder,
half teaspoon of baking soda.
I'm shifting because I can get rid of those
big chunks of Cheetos.
Half teaspoon of salt, kosher salt is a little bit
big grain so when you shift it,
sometimes it doesn't go through,
so I don't usually shift salt.
Set this aside and I'm going to make my wet ingredients.
Half cup of sour cream, one and half cup of buttermilk.
Butter cream is a little bit tangy, it's like sour.
Separate four eggs, we are whisking egg white later,
so make sure there is no egg yolk trace
in our egg white bowl and make sure bowl is clean.
Four tablespoon of melted butter and mix well with whisk.
Set this aside, combine my wet ingredients
to dry ingredients.
Whip my egg whites, whisk the egg whites until hard peak
and switch to spatula and fold in the egg whites.
You don't wanna use whisk, because you don't want to kill
all the bubbles you created with making meringue.
- [Producer] Rie, has there ever been a product
that you tried at the start of a Make It Fancy episode
that you now have regularly?
- Okay, batter is good to go and we gonna cook it.
So, I'm using nonstick waffle maker,
scoop my batter, for half cup.
I like brunch food in general, I like pancakes,
French toast, waffle.
I've never tried hot waffle, I hope it's gonna be good.
Looks good, one down.
Whenever you go to hotel with Continental Breakfast,
there is like waffle station, it's always a mess,
batter is everywhere, there's a long wait.
I'm gonna go one more right, this one is ready.
Flaming Hot Cheetos waffle, looks good.
I'm going to cook rest of the batter
and moving onto the next step.
So, we have this chicken from the fridge,
marinating about two hours.
Two cup of buttermilk, two tablespoon of hot sauce,
it'll take a long time.
Lightly mix, I'm going to dredge in flour,
dip in the buttermilk mixture and dredge in flour again,
so you can have kind of crispy crust.
So, we are frying at 325 fahrenheit about 10 to 12 minutes.
And you don't want to overcrowd your pot,
so I'm frying, two at a time.
It's important to have thermometer,
because if you are frying way too high heat,
outside is only cooking and inside is not cooked.
It's been 10 to 12 minutes, I'm going to check
the inner temperature, it has to be 165, so it's ready.
If your chicken is getting darker in oil
and the inner temperature is not reaching 165,
just finish in oven.
The crust looks very crispy and I'm going to brush the oil,
I made earlier and you want to make sure the oil is hot
so it doesn't cool down the chicken.
The reason I'm using oil based sauce,
so it doesn't make chicken crust soggy,
if you make the sauce with like water base,
it's gonna make it soggy.
Finish rest of the chicken and moving onto the next step.
So, all the ingredients are ready, and I'm going to plate.
Brush melted butter on the waffle, I want to finish
with a little bit spice I made, the microgreens
just like a nice little salad and we are done.
(gentle piano music)
Flaming Hot chicken and waffle, it's very fancy.
(gentle jazz music) Andrew, Adam,
welcome back to another Make It Fancy episode.
- Fried chicken and waffle?
- Mm-hmm. (laughs)
Is it, I wanna guess, is it a strawberry milk syrup?
- (laughs) No. - Flaming Hot Cheetos?
(laughs) - Oh there is a dust here.
There is like a spicy dust. - Did I nail it?
- I'm using my hands Adam.
- I can see that.
- Mm-hmm! - It's good, right?
- These are good! - [Rie] Yeah.
- It's sweet. - [Rie] Mm-hmm.
- And a little spicy. - Yeah.
Does it taste like a strawberry milk?
- It does not taste like strawberry milk, no.
I can taste the Cheeto.
- Do you remember you made me a Flaming Hot Cheetos burrito
for Eating Your Feed?
- I do, yeah. - Oh yeah!
You liked it but you were mad that you liked it.
- Oh, did you make a batter from the Cheetos?
- Yeah, so I made a--
- What, I'm shocked at how good this is.
- Make It Fancy! - Make It Fancy!
- So, we have a special guest today, Jenn Harris.
She is a L.A. Times Senior Food writer
and official fried chicken queen.
- It looks spicy, it's very red and orange
and I feel like it's going to make my head tingle.
Because of how red it is, it reminds me of
Flaming Hot Cheetos, I would love to try it.
- Yeah, please. - Okay, Great.
Mm-hmm, that's delicious fried chicken.
- [Rie] Yes (clapping hands)!
- Does taste like Hot Cheetos. - Yes (laughs)!
- I will bow down to you queen!
This is awesome, this is very good,
I can keep eating it, right?
- Yes! - Okay, great!
This chicken is structurally sound, it's super moist
in the middle, but then you have this really great
craggly, crispy skin, that like sticks with the chicken,
it doesn't like separate from the skin.
The honey is great 'cause that's what I normally eat,
I normally eat honey and hot sauce with my chicken
so you did it for me with Cheetos.
- Yes, do you like Flaming Hot Cheetos?
- I love Flaming Hot Cheetos. - [Rie] Okay.
- If anyone says, "They don't."
They're lying. (laughs)
- Make It Fancy! - Make It Fancy!
(gentle jazz music)