Peking House

A New Kind of Hot Chicken, from Pecking House | The New Yorker

"I hadn’t realized how much I missed that cheap, comforting pairing until I opened a bag of food dropped off by Eric Huang, the impressively pedigreed Taiwanese-American chef behind a new takeout-and-delivery operation called Pecking House. He sent two Tsingtaos packed in ice, which felt like a portal to a former life and were a consummate foil for his singular fried chicken: three pieces of white and dark meat brined in buttermilk and battered with flour, cornstarch, potato starch and five-spice, plus a modified wheat dextrin called EverCrisp to keep the crust crunchy in transit. The chicken is finished with a tantalizing seasoning of crushed Tianjin chilies, Szechuan peppercorn, salt, sugar and MSG that calls to mind both Taiwanese popcorn chicken and Nashville hot chicken. The set meal ($35) also includes “dirty fried rice” — Cajun-prepared with a wok-caramelized chicken-liver purée — and two greenmarket-inspired sides, like crispy Brussels sprouts with sesame oil and black vinegar or dashi-simmered kabocha with caramelized onion and bacon crumble; vegetarians can have cauliflower that stays custardy yet sturdy enough to hold the batter. Unable to bake in the space, Huang still manages imaginative desserts cooked on the stovetop, such as a peanut-butter pudding with Concord-grape gelée and pretzel crumble, and his decision to start Pecking House reflects a shift from fine-dining ambitions toward simply making people happy and giving Chinese-American cuisine a modern boost." - Hannah Goldfield