- Somebody would appreciate this
and is like "Baby, make this for me."
I'm not that woman.
I'm not that woman, I'm not that woman.
(upbeat music)
- My name is Ashton Scott Morris.
I'm from Jackson, Tennessee,
we're a small town, a pretty mighty town
in the middle of Memphis and Nashville, Tennessee
- Hi my name is Matthew, I'm from Long Beach.
Grew up with my grandmother, she was from Louisiana.
She taught me everything there was
to know about Southern cooking.
- I am Kimberly Forbes.
I am from a very small town in Georgia
called Lavonia, Georgia,
which is about an hour-twenty, an hour-thirty
Northeast of Atlanta.
- My grandma was like, when I was a little kid,
"You need to learn how to cook
because you might not find a woman
going to be able to cook the things you might want to eat,
you know, growing up, cause you a big boy."
- Something that will definitely get you in trouble
with Southern cooking is skimping on the seasoning.
If it's calling for whole milk and pure butter,
you better use whole milk and pure butter,
it's not the time to mess around.
What big mama said is what big mama said.
- My chicken and waffles is pretty good
because it's flavorful,
it's a lot of different ingredients,
you got that Southern flower, right?
You know what I'm saying?
Add a little buttermilk, seasoned properly well,
and it's cooked.
You know what I'm saying?
From the heart,
this is stuff that my mom taught me how to get down.
- I made the traditional waffle batter from scratch,
but what's different about mine,
is I actually use Southern seasonings,
I use fresh herbs like rosemary, thyme,
sage, and fresh garlic, onions, and cilantro,
and then I'll fold pieces of fried chicken into it
and chunks of cheese into my batter and cook it as one.
So every bite you're getting a chunk
of chicken or cheese or fresh herbs.
And I made a special peanut butter syrup.
So, you're going to get kind of spicy
from the waffle and the chicken,
and sweet from the peanut butter and the syrup.
- So for today I have prepared for you,
a chicken and waffle recipe that has
been passed down just a wee bit.
I've done my own little take on it,
but the pièce de résistance,
or in the south, they would say,
"The good part, honey."
is the fact that I made a
caramelized pecan praline glaze.
(upbeat music)
- I'm going to win cause I think my dish
is going to be the most great,
I'm gonna have the most flavor.
- Oh, there's so much sauce.
- Where's the chicken at?
This is like a fusion chicken and waffle type giant.
Yeah, this definitely some L.A. (bleep).
- Is that peanut butter?
Why is there peanut butter?
There should not be peanut butter.
- Looking for the chicken.
I think I taste a little bit of it.
- [Producer] Talk to me about the chicken.
- What chicken?
There's chicken on here?
Where's the chicken?
- I can't find the chicken at all
in this mother (bleep).
This aint no southern chicken and waffles.
- Oh, it's like a adventure, all right, okay.
- Looks like the chicken is, yeah, see,
looks like the chicken is infused in the waffle.
Looks like something, you know,
like you would see on the Food Network.
- This screams Louisiana.
Most definitely, where it's just like,
we gonna put it all together
and we just gonna get what we get.
Sit on down.
When I think of breakfast,
first, I don't want to hunt for my food.
Secondly, first thing in the morning--
oh, my chest is hot, I feel it, Jesus.
- It's like a good, you know,
rotation on chicken and waffle.
It was coming off like,
maybe tenth off the bench or something.
- Wait, hold up, what is that?
What is it?
Oh, that's hard.
Oh.
I would like to respectfully stop eating this.
- I'm going to give it a 6.8.
- I would say like a solid 6.2.
That's like a D with a little extra love.
(upbeat music)
- My chicken and waffles is going to win today
because I mean, look at it, man,
it looks like something your grandmamma cooked.
I mean, this is them old time recipes,
it's good, it tastes good, seasoned properly,
you know what I'm saying?
That smacking where you get, you know,
that smack when it's good,
that's what they going to get when
they eat this chicken and waffles.
(upbeat music)
- Okay, okay.
This is looking yummy.
This is looking, I can recognize everything.
- Right now, what I'm automatically
drawn to is the color of this chicken.
Like, this one looks really good color,
but this one, the color on it doesn't look at all.
- It's got good crunch.
Not too much crunch, not a huge fan of a lot of crunch.
- I won't spit this out.
- Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- This chicken is not good at all.
It's bland and dry.
- This chicken is the bomb.
I'm sorry, I'm gonna finish this chicken,
I'm hungry.
- All right, let's try the waffle.
No more of that one.
- Definitely not a fluffy waffle.
(laughing)
Oh, you gotta stab it,
you gotta get up in it.
You gotta, all right,
oop, knock, knock.
- It has a bitter aftertaste.
I can't figure out what it is.
Almost taste like cough syrup at the end.
They didn't add anything to the waffle.
So, it's just like a bland waffle,
with some bland chicken on top.
- That's dry.
- This isn't from the south at all.
- This is tasting a little North Carolina.
I'm picking up some-- we're headed east.
- This is a fail by all means.
- Now, the chicken is like a nine,
if it had... 8.5 net.
This waffle,
is bringing me down.
- On a scale of one to ten, this is a one.
- So overall, I would definitely
give this a solid 7.4.
I have the spirit of Georgia behind me.
So, you know what?
Georgia is thriving right now.
And there is no way it can be beaten.
So, get into these Georgia pecans right now.
(upbeat music)
- All right, it just looks like some
kind of dessert kind of chicken,
you know what I'm saying?
- Wow. This is interesting.
- The waffle is,
it's hard, but it's a good hard.
- Taste like a, you know, Eggo waffle.
- And the syrup and the walnuts
have been like caramelized.
So it's like a caramelize,
So they probably put it over the pan.
- Might be in New Orleans or somewhere.
You know, with this pecan praline style waffle.
- I'm trying to think more like,
like 'Bama, Tennessee,
that aint Mississippi cause of their water,
somewhere around there, maybe Georgia.
Just cause I see the nuts
with the kind of little cluster going in.
- [Producer] Would you order this at a restaurant?
- Would I order it again, after I got it the first time?
No.
- You know, this ain't like,
mom and pop type chicken and waffles.
I never had this,
I don't remember grandma coming up on Saturday's
putting in this effort.
She would make that waffle batter,
fried that chicken in the FryDaddy.
You can't even find a FryDaddy anymore.
- Maybe with the pecans and everything going,
I get where they were going with it,
but this is purely just too sweet.
You go from sweet over here to like fried chicken.
It doesn't all gel together.
- I think the one thing about this,
a lot of people want to come to like chicken and waffles.
They might not want walnuts
and like a glamorized syrup or whatever,
but overall, you know, I mess with it.
- This is way too much stuff on it.
Like, I don't know if the waffle is supposed
to be the star or the walnuts.
- I'm going to give it an eight.
I think it is a little too sweet.
They definitely went right with the chicken.
I really like the chicken a lot.
What I think what they kind of went wrong with,
is just the improvement of the waffle,
just like the sweetness of it,
and a little bit too much walnuts.
- The chicken was pretty good,
too much nuts and stuff, too much topping,
can't tell if it was about the nuts or about the waffle.
On a scale of one to ten,
I'd probably give it a five.
(upbeat music)