The sandwich from a one-counter shop in a mall food court, the one I’ve been chasing ever since. Everything about it was quiet except the crust: dark, thick, and gritty with cornmeal, on a piece of chicken you could tell had been a breast that morning. The toppings stayed out of its way.
The story is in Chicken sandwich, crispy, mall style.
Picks
All crust, with quiet toppings.
- Chicken sandwich patties: Whole breast, not pressed into a perfect patty
- Breading and frying chicken patties: Medium-grind cornmeal cut with flour, fried dark
- Assembling chicken sandwiches: Lettuce and maybe a slice of tomato, on a kaiser with a crusty outside and a chewy, airy inside
- Chicken sandwich sauces: Mayo
Why these picks
- Nothing competes with the crust. Mayo, lettuce, and maybe tomato. The crust is the whole point.
- A kaiser. Chewy enough to hold up to a thick, crunchy crust without being squashed by it.
- Cut with flour. Straight cornmeal doesn’t hold together; some flour makes it stick.
How it fails
- Pale crust: not fried long enough. It wants to be dark.
- Too much going on: a full deluxe build buries the crust. That’s The BCS.
Recipes
Cornmeal fried chicken (the patties are in “Patties for sandwiches and burgers”).