What’s the secret to making a chicken sandwich that’s crunchy, tender, tangy, spicy and sweet?
At 3’s Greenville, culinary director Chris Wehking has cracked the code.
The sandwich is one of the most popular items on the menu at the 12-hole par-3 course. And Wehking says he approached the sandwich as a take on Nashville-style hot chicken.
“We’re putting a Carolina spin on it,” he said.
The magic starts with a chicken thigh, which Wehking marinates in buttermilk and hot sauce overnight. Then, the chicken is dipped in a seasoned all-purpose flour dredge that includes paprika, cayenne, black pepper, garlic and onion.
The chicken thigh is then placed in the fryer for four to six minutes. Wehking uses a thermometer to ensure the chicken has reached a minimum internal temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit.
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Once the chicken is done, it’s time to dress the sandwich. A Martin’s potato bun is buttered and toasted on the griddle. The fried chicken thigh is seasoned with some salt, granulated onion and granulated garlic.
Wehking then applies a “white” barbecue sauce to the bun.
“They call it white because it’s mayonnaise-based,” he says. “Not because it’s actually white.”
Wehking then coats the chicken thigh with a house-made sauce.
“It starts as a base of like a traditional Nashville hot chicken, which is a bunch of cayenne that has been warmed up and kind of bloomed, if you will, in some lard with garlic, onion, paprika, a little bit of brown sugar in there, and kind of just rounds it out,” he says. “And then we’ve taken that and blended it with a mustard-based barbecue sauce. There’s like yellow mustard, a little bit of brown sugar, plenty of apple cider vinegar for some tang, a little bit of cayenne pepper.”
The chicken thigh is topped with a vinegar slaw — cabbage pickled in apple cider vinegar with some mustard and honey for sweetness.
Just how good is the finished product? GOLF’s Josh Sens was lucky enough to be on-site to try it.
“Oh man,” he says after taking a hefty bite. “You get that tang, sweetness from the slaw. That is perfect. Hotness scale, I’d give it like a six. It’s got some heat but it’s not like, blow your mind. You can taste the sweetness and the heat at the same time.”
Perhaps the highest praise from Sens was this: “It’s perfectly balanced, like my golf swing.”
To watch a tutorial on how Wehking makes the Carolina hot chicken sandwich at 3’s Greenville, check out the video above. And to learn more about 3’s, click here.