If you’re wondering how many menu items can be made with fried chicken, keep wondering. New uses continue to be found for the delicacy, which is found in many cuisines across the world, including Japan, where it’s often dusted in a light flour coating before being fried. That technique, called karaage, is now being used at Jinya Ramen Bar, where the chicken is plopped into the ramen broth itself.
Buffalo wings are also an item that’s growing in popularity. Originating decades ago in Buffalo, N.Y., as fried chicken wings tossed in a spicy and vinegary sauce served with blue cheese dressing and celery, now both the wings and the sauce have taken on lives of their own. The flavor combination is being used in a beef tartare at the new Parlour Room in New York City. Wings, of course, are virtually ubiquitous now and are the key menu item of several chains, including Wingstop. That chain’s latest innovation is a new sauce made with Sichuan peppercorns.
Margaritas are trendy, too, of course, and Chili’s Grill & Bar is celebrating the holidays with the Merry Berry ’Rita, garnished with a festive candy cane.
At Church and Union in Nashville, chef Adam Hodgson is finding a new use for French onion soup by gelatinizing it and stuffing it in agnolotti, and in Denver, at Kachina Cantina, guests have a choice of having their taco on corn or flour tortillas or, in a nod to local Native American culture, frybread.
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