The Fat Diaries: The Homemade KFC Double Down
Despite the general outcry, KFC hasn’t pulled back their new Double Down sandwich (two chicken fillets with bacon and melted cheese). In fact it’s been compared to a very classic dish heavy in meat and cheese: chicken cordon bleu. Both Ezra Klein and Slash Food have posted articles comparing the two dishes. That being the case, I was issued an interesting challenge this week: do a taste test. I was to make chicken cordon bleu, purchase a Double Down, and dutifully taste both.
I’ve never eaten a Double Down, and I’ve eaten cordon bleu but never made it, so this was going to be grueling on both accounts. Cordon bleu was never one of my favorite chicken dishes, I have avoided it since I was a kid. I always found it rather bland. The ham was never hammy enough. My handi-snacks eating, sodium-craving tastebuds never could enjoy a dish with very little seasoning, and encased in white chicken meat. I figured twenty years was long enough a gap to give it a second chance.
My first task was in locating a good recipe. Now, I honestly tried to get the Julia Child recipe for chicken cordon bleu. I don’t have a Julia Child cookbook; most of my cookbooks are those fundraising ones that churches put together using recipes from the parish. 90% of them start with “Open 1 can of cream of mushroom soup…” So I led myself to the Loudon County Public Library to check out a copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Now, I kid you not, out of the 20+ books of Julia Child’s recipes and expertise EVERY ONE had been checked out with a waiting list a month long.
Slightly discouraged, but determined nonetheless, I found this serviceable recipe courtesy of FoodNetwork.com I wanted to keep it simple. I suppose I could have used a recipe calling for imported pancetta and Gruyere cheese and truffle oil, but I wanted to make a cordon bleu that fit my time and budget to give a fair comparison to KFC’s highly processed version. That being said, I used very nice ham and Swiss cheese. I didn’t get the sale items (I groaned inwardly as I passed them up) and went for the middle range of tasty and accessible.
The recipe was easier than I thought it would be. It was rather fun pounding the chicken breasts flat with a mallet. They rolled up far easier than any sandwich wraps (I decided to do the traditional pinwheel style instead of the “empanada” style in the recipe). The toothpicks still came in handy there. The dredging in flour, egg and panko was messy as heck, but again, very easy. I had to wash my hands a grand total of 18 times to avoid cross-contamination and needed to put Vaseline and socks on my hands for a night.
The recipes I read were split between pan-frying and finishing in the oven, and purely oven baking. I decided on the latter, since the ventilation hood on my range still doesn’t work and I have a low success-rate for pan-frying in oil. I still had to pour 4 TBS of butter over the croquettes. When they came out of the oven, they looked really good, and I felt the glow of accomplishment over my first attempt. I would have liked to have paired this with something classy like asparagus or minted potatoes, but since the kids had to eat this too, it was paired with organic mac and cheese and whole green beans.
Now for round one: My chicken had a pleasantly crunchy outside. The chicken was nice and moist, and the cheese was bubbly and soft. Upon tasting it, I did feel a stab of regret that I hadn’t strayed from the recipe and marinated the chicken to give it more flavor. It was a very lightly seasoned dish, and since the panko was unseasoned, it required a little salt and pepper for a kick of flavor. After that, it was very tasty. I was a little sad that the ham was less “hammy.” Like previous croquettes, it seemed to have been parboiled in the juice from the chicken and the whey released from the melted cheese. Maybe pancetta would have been a better move. In its favor, I loved that the sweet notes from the Swiss cheese mixed perfectly with the salty ham and the buttery crunchy coating.
Again, if I were to do this over, I’d marinate the chicken and add a little black pepper and paprika to the coating. It was an otherwise very nice meal, easy-ish to prepare, and not too fattening (compared to some of my other chicken recipes).
On to round two: I opened the box containing the Double Down and recoiled. Presentation was obviously not a concern as this looked like a post-mortem of two chicken patties caught in a head-on collision. Both were bleeding cheese, bacon and some noxious orange goo, as well as something else I couldn't identify. In the interest of science, however I steeled myself and took a bite.
Confession: the first bite was really good. The chicken was crispy, the dressing (thousand island or ranch, I couldn't’ tell) was zesty, and it was very flavorful. I was overcome with the desire to go into a shark-like feeding frenzy and devour the rest. Oh no! I thought in despair, I’m going to have to tell my readers that the Double Down is delicious! Then the sodium hit me. It burned my tongue and my throat, and robbed me of all sense of taste.
In the next few bites, I couldn’t distinguish one flavor from another, it was just this savory sledgehammer smashing me in the mouth. Examining the “sandwich” closer I was able to identify that last ingredient. Someone thought it was important to cram a single leaf of iceberg lettuce into the double-down. The futility of such a gesture made me snort chicken up my nose. Ouch. More sodium burns. After three bites I felt ill, after four bites I gave the bulk to my husband and rinsed my mouth out with water. My acid reflux was acting up and I was thirsty.
So, final thoughts? This was a fun challenge, and I’m glad I did it. Sometimes it’s nice to find a concrete reason to change my eating habits and this was certainly educational. It also shows me how far I’ve come. Five years ago I don’t think the sodium in a Double Down would have phased me at all, and I probably would have eaten the potato wedges too. After tackling the Double Down, I didn’t want to even look at anything salty. In the end I concluded that there really is no comparison between the Double Down and a cordon bleu. It’s like comparing vinyl to leather. Both kind of serve the same purpose; there are properties of each which are similar; they differ in quality and materials; and the difference is indistinguishable to people with no sense of taste. Okay, I need a Tums now.
