Mr. Sato will show you how to make this unique delight, eventually!
We recently reported on the arrival of a special edition of Pepsi which was designed to pair especially well with fried chicken, and even picked up a bottle to try it for ourselves. But is that the limit of what can be done with this product?
For instance, what if one was to recreate the delicacy of cola fried chicken with a cola that was specifically designed to enhance the taste of fried chicken? By our calculations, it would be a food of earth-shatteringly delicious proportions. To confirm this, we sent Mr. Sato out to procure a bottle and make cola fried chicken with it.
He initially had trouble finding it, because Pepsi Zero Karaage Senyo Cola (“Pepsi Zero Exclusively for Fried Chicken Cola”) wasn’t sold in any convenience store in his area. The only place he could find it was a Maruetsu supermarket, but on the bright side it was only 84 yen (US$0.62) there.
Our reporter also bought all the other ingredients to make fried chicken, and began to have a strange feeling of déjà vu about all this as he laid them out on the office table.
Something about buying a bunch of food and cooking it up in the office just felt right to Mr. Sato, and he began to feel extra giddy about his job. First, you can’t have cola fried chicken with chicken, so he got the pack of meat ready for preparing.
However, just as he was about to remove the plastic wrap, he noticed that the meat was imported from Brazil. As the old schoolyard logic goes, Brazil is on the other side of the planet from Japan, so if you were to drill down through the center, that’s where you would arrive. It’s also an equally effective route of communication.
▼ Mr. Sato: “Hey, Brazilians!!! Thanks for the meat!!!”
▼ Mr. Sato: “Can you hear me?! I SAID THANKS… Whoa…”
Mr. Sato: “I never noticed how filthy the floor is here…”
▼ Mr. Sato: “Hey, Brazilians!!! Sorry about the dirty floor!!! I’ll call back later!”
With pleasantries out of the way, our writer prepared a baggie for marinating.
▼ Mr. Sato: “Check it out! Ziplock, because I rock! Yeaaaaaaah!”
▼ Mr. Sato: “Wait a minute… ‘Heiko Freezer Bag’ brand freezer bags?! Err…”
Mr. Sato tried to think of something witty to say about Heiko Freezer Bags as he prepared one to safely pour the special Pepsi into.
▼ Mr. Sato: “Heiko, because I’m sick yo…”
▼ Mr. Sato: “Naw… Freezer skeezer…”
▼ Mr. Sato: “In the bag… I’m in the bag. No, it’s in the bag…”
▼ Mr. Sato: “Eeeeee! Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap! Did I spill some?”
▼ Mr. Sato: “Nope! It’s all…in the bag! Hahaha!”
Ten minutes in and having successfully poured clear cola into a plastic bag, Mr. Sato took a break to admire his work so far.
▼ Mr. Sato: “It’s like I’m in a carbonated aquarium.”
▼ Mr. Sato: “…”
However, he soon realized that if he was going to get this done today, he would have to start taking it more seriously.
The next step was to put the chicken into the cola and allow its special blend of flavors to seep into the meat. He would then also make some normal fried chicken without using the Pepsi Zero Karaage Senyo Cola to compare.
This being the most important part of the process, our reporter would have to proceed very carefully.
▼ Mr. Sato: “What the hell?! Why is this chicken so big?”
▼ Mr. Sato: “Oh well, I guess it’ll have to do.”
▼ Mr. Sato: “I’ll just have to put this in very carefully.”
▼ Mr. Sato: “If I slip and drop this it might splash cola on me, and that would be embarrassing but not funny enough to make it worthwhile.”
▼ Mr. Sato: “Or worse, it might be so heavy that it makes me drop the whole bag causing it to splatter all over the floor and offend the Brazilians even more. This is too much pressure!”
▼ Mr. Sato: “Aaaaaaarrrrrggggghh!”
▼ Mr. Sato: “Hey! I did it!”
The next step was to let the meat lie in the cola for about an hour.
Mr. Sato found a relatively clean spot on the office floor to lie down with his chicken and take a nap for about an hour while his colleagues continued to work hard.
▼ Mr. Sato: “Hush little baggie…”
▼ Mr. Sato: “Don’t you cry…”
▼ Mr. Sato: “Sato’s gonna buy you a pump…kin…pie…zzz”
Fortunately, after Mr. Sato fell asleep, Yoshio, who was handling camera duties for this project, took the chicken and placed it in the fridge for the next hour to reduce Mr. Sato’s chances of getting salmonella infection.
When our reporter awoke, he returned to the cooking table and started to season the meat, beginning with the non-cola chicken.
He cut the chicken into six pieces that looked about the size of karaage fried chicken.
He then put the pieces into another Heiko Freezer Bag filled with sake, soy sauce, ginger, and garlic. Of course, you can use any flavoring to suit your personal needs.
▼ Mr. Sato: “I use Heiko, because mako…shark…hmmm.”
He then let the meat soak in the seasonings.
After that, he brought out the Pepsi-Zero-Karaage-Senyo-Cola-infused chicken.
However, it looked as if the chicken had infused the cola instead.
▼ Mr. Sato: “E.T. phone home…”
▼ Mr. Sato: “Just kidding! It’s really me!”
Mr. Sato then repeated the process with the cola chicken, first cutting it into six pieces.
And then placing it in the same mixture are the regular chicken.
About three hours into this recipe, our writer now had a two bags of raw chicken prepared.
In an effort to speed up the flavoring process he began squishing the sauces and chicken together.
However, it became far more labor intensive than he had expected.
He also began to worry that if he got too tired from squishing the first bag, he wouldn’t be able to squish the second bag as thoroughly.
This might throw off the results of this painstaking experiment.
▼ Mr. Sato: “My data!”
He hurried into the other room to recruit someone to help.
It would have to be an easily manipulated person.
It needed to be someone gullible enough to buy Mr. Sato’s half-baked story about data integrity and help him squish raw meat for a while.
▼ Mr. Sato: “Stop what you’re doing, right now!!!”
▼ Mr. Sato: “Ahiruneko!!!”
▼ Ahiruneko: “Why are you shouting? I’m like five feet away from you.”
▼ Mr. Sato: “HELP ME AHIRUNEKO! YOU’RE MY ONLY HOPE!”
▼ Mr. Sato: “Look at my arms! They’ve grown week and feeble from my toils! LOOK AT THEM!”
▼ Ahiruneko: “Alright, just shut up.”
▼ Mr. Sato: “Okay, so you’re the only person I can trust to do this.”
▼ Mr. Sato: “I need you to help me grumousch this.”
▼ Ahiruneko: “‘Grumousch’ is not a word.”
Mr. Sato: “Of course it is. I just said it.”
▼ Mr. Sato: “Okay, first it is crucial that our movements are in perfect synchronicity to ensure that each chicken is equally flavored.”
▼ Mr. Sato: “FIRST RAISE IT OVER YOUR HEAD AND DON’T TAKE ANY CRAP FROM IT! AAAAAAH!!!”
▼ Ahiruneko: “OKAY! AAAAAAAH!!!”
▼ Mr. Sato: “Good the grumousch is initiated! Keep holding!”
Ahiruneko: “AAAAAAAH!!!”
▼ Mr. Sato: “Now jump up and down!”
Ahiruneko: “AAAAAAAH!”
▼ Mr. Sato: “Harder!!!”
Ahiruneko: “AAAAAAAH!!!”
▼ Mr. Sato: “YES! The chicken is yielding! Keep it up!”
Ahiruneko: “AAAAAH!”
▼ Mr. Sato: “Now we spin!”
Ahiruneko: “AAAAAAAAH!!!”
▼ Mr. Sato: “AAAAAAAAAH!!!”
Ahiruneko: “AAAAAAAAH!!!!”
▼ Mr. Sato: “AAAAAAAAAH!!!”
Ahiruneko: “AAAAAAAAH!!!!”
▼ Mr. Sato: “Almost there! Don’t forget to stop once the revolution is complete!”
Ahiruneko: “AAAAAAAAH!!!!”
▼ Mr. Sato: “Good! One more time!”
Ahiruneko: “AAAAAAAAH!!!!”
▼ Mr. Sato: “AAAAAAAAAH!!!”
Ahiruneko: “AAAAAAAAH!!!!”
▼ Mr. Sato: “AAAAAAAAAH!!!”
Ahiruneko: “AAAAAAAAH!!!!”
▼ Mr. Sato: “AAAAAAAAAH!!!”
Ahiruneko: “AAAAAAAAH!!!!”
▼ Ahiruneko: “AAAAAAAAH!!!!”
▼ Mr. Sato: “Now we go low!”
Ahiruneko: “AAAAAAAAH!!!!”
▼ Mr. Sato: “Watch the floor! It’s dirty!”
Ahiruneko: “AAAAAAAAH!!!!”
▼ Mr. Sato: “…”
Ahiruneko: “AAAAAAAAH!!!!”
▼ Mr. Sato: “…”
▼ Mr. Sato: “Back up!”
Ahiruneko: “AAAAAAAAAH!”
▼ Mr. Sato: “Almost! Let’s stick the landing now!”
Ahiruneko: “AAAAAAAH!”
▼ Mr. Sato: “It is done…”
Thirty-seven minutes later, the seasoning was complete and the two warriors looked at each other in silent agreement.
In enduring this ritual together, they forged a depth of relationship known to few.
▼ Ahiruneko: “We grumousched the crap out of that chicken, Mr. Sato!”
Mr. Sato then placed the well-grumousched chicken into the fridge for further seasoning.
He figured it would take about another 30 minutes for the flavor to hold.
▼ Mr. Sato: “Making fried chicken is hard.”
With the 30 minutes almost up, our writer prepared a pan and stove for frying.
He then removed two pieces of the cola chicken and two of the regular and placed them on a plate.
Next, he sprinkled flour and potato starch on the meat. The more potato starch used, the crispier the fried chicken would be.
Wanting everything to be perfect, Mr. Sato focused deeply on meticulously spreading the coating over the meat as evenly as possible.
▼ Mr. Sato: “I’m glad I have this room all to myself for this.”
▼ Mr. Sato: “It helps me focus on the work at hand and not be bothered by the idiotic ramblings of people like Harada.”
▼ Mr. Sato: “If he tells me one more time about his dumb Pokémon, I swear I’ll squirtle his ass with this hot oil.”
Harada: “…”
With the chicken nicely floured and starched, it was time to start frying!
Not wanting to risk a case of food poisoning in the office, Mr. Sato used a thermometer to ensure the proper frying temperature of 160 to 180 degrees Celsius (320 to 356 degrees Fahrenheit).
Also, not wanting to be splashed with hot oil, our writer kept a safe distance while he placed the meat into the pan.
▼ Mr. Sato: “Hey! Look at that!”
He made a special note of where he placed each type of chicken, with the cola-marinated meat on the far side and regular chicken on the near side.
He then flipped the chicken after thoroughly browning the bottom side.
▼ Mr. Sato: “This looks really delici…”
▼ Mr. Sato: “HEY! HARADA!!!”
▼ Harada: “Oh my god! What?! What did I do?!”
▼ Mr. Sato: “Doesn’t this look delicious?”
▼ Harada: “Yes, it looks yummy. I’m very happy for you.”
▼ Mr. Sato: “Yes, thank you. I’m happy for me too. Everybody is happy…”
That was enough comradery for one afternoon. After about five hours of cooking, these four pieces of fried chicken were almost complete! Mr. Sato carefully poked them with a skewer and made sure clear juices came out.
He then placed them on a wire rack to allow the oil to drip off as it cooled.
Again, our writer made sure to keep track of each type of chicken, because to the eye they were identical.
▼ Cola chicken (left) and regular chicken (right)
The only thing to do now was find out how different they were to the taste.
Mr. Sato first took a piece of the normal chicken to get a baseline reading.
It was nicely fried and had a lightly seasoned taste.
But it was very good and had a homemade feeling to it rather than the bold flavors of a restaurant.
Now, the moment of truth had come. Our reporter prepared to become perhaps the first human to dine on fried-chicken-dedicated-cola-fried chicken.
As he took the first bite, he got a little nervous. Could a mortal human handle the potential deliciousness packed into this chicken?
▼ Mr. Sato: “Hmmm… Yes… I see… Interesting.”
▼ Mr. Sato: “Yes… The meat certainly seems more tender, but… I don’t know.”
To confirm his analysis, Mr. Sato asked Yoshio to administer a blind taste test.
Mr. Sato then submitted Yoshio to one as well.
And in conclusion…
▼ Mr. Sato: “They pretty much taste the same.”
Mr. Sato reported that the meat was more tender, but that was likely a result of the carbonation, meaning that any other carbonated drink would probably give similar results. In other, more confusing, words: Marinating chicken in Pepsi designed to enhance eating fried chicken, does not enhance eating fried chicken very much.
Still, maybe the real deliciousness of fried chicken Pepsi fried chicken wasn’t in the chicken at all, but in the friends Mr. Sato had made along the way.
It was because of all his treasured friendships that this was easily the 17th best fried chicken he had ever eaten.
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[ Read in Japanese ]