Cai Nan Built Transparent Fried Chicken You Can See Straight Through

Cai Nan runs a YouTube channel dedicated to weird food experiments that I’m sure most of us home cooks would be too afraid to attempt. His most recent effort takes a simple concept and turns it into something completely mind-blowing: a chicken wing that is so clear it looks like a glass sculpture while yet providing the texture and flavor of traditional fried chicken.

In his most recent segment, Cai Nan brings us through the entire procedure, from start to finish. He was only wondering what would happen if he rebuilt a fried chicken wing from scratch utilizing all of these modern cuisine skills. It all started with the bones, which were made by combining bone marrow, collagen, and cold gel before pouring it into chicken bone-shaped molds. After everything solidified, he was left with bones that appeared perfect and were translucent to boot.

The meat came next, as he utilized a unique technology to break down real chicken into this liquidy substance that retained all of the original flavor. At this time, the combination resembled nothing like chicken, but rather a transparent soup with a strong chicken flavour. Then he used the spherification procedure, which transformed the liquid into a gel with the muscle fiber texture of genuine chicken but was also translucent. By this point, it appeared that the meat and bones would be a fairly equal match in terms of transparency.

He then joined the two halves into a final mold that resembled a full chicken wing. Everything came together perfectly as it set, but one additional technical trick was required to get the outer shell just right, such that it was crispy on the outside but did not lend color or cloudiness to the remainder of the wing. He then had his finished creation, a wing that resembled edible glass. You could see straight through the meat and bones. Surprisingly, the taste and texture remained unchanged. The coating retained its crunch, and the meat retained all of its delicious savory characteristics.

Cai Nan has built a reputation for doing this type of thing: taking a familiar meal and utilizing all of these precise procedures to modify the way it appears while retaining what makes it delicious to eat. This translucent wing takes it to the next level because it is created entirely of real chicken and does not rely on a fancy 3D printer to complete the task.
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