Gizzard wizard
Top chef brings upmarket twist to fast food favourite
Anna Burnside
A chef has swapped Michelin star cooking for fried chicken with his new venture.
Falkirk-born James Murray will sell fried chicken with a skewer of gizzards on the side from an industrial unit in Leith.
Called Jimmy’s Fried Chicken – JFC – it’s bringing an upmarket foodie twist to the fast food favourite.
And instead of throwing away the bones once he’s used the breast and legs, James is using every scrap of the bird to make a type of Japanese kebab called yakatori.
He has ordered 50 whole chickens a week from a free range poultr y farm in Strathaven, Lanarkshire – and plans to sell everything except the cluck.
James, 35, said: “We will take our time to scrape the carcass clean. I don’t want anything going to waste, everything wi l l get used. It’s super delicious and pays respect to the animal.”
The chef, who had a Michelin star for his restaurant Nur in Hong Kong, is putting all his skills and years of experience into making the ultimate fried chicken takeaway.
He said: “Even if it’s from a cardboard box it can still be amazing.”
He knows he will have to educate his customers to order a skewer of chicken hearts with their tray of nuggets.
James added: “Everyonee is happy too come and eat fried chicken but I want people to try the skewers and understand what we are trying to do.”
He has strategies for tempting them to sample the bits of a bird that usually end up in the bin.
James said: “When people are queuing up, I’m going to take out sticks and get people trying it.
“Instead of happy hour, I’m going to have yaki hour.”
For customers who are more used to familiar bits of chicken sold in a big bucket, James is doing a tray meal for one person.
At £20, it costs a little more than a traditional takeaway but the chef is confident that people will pay more for a free range bird served with Michelin-style extras.
He said his chicken set was good value compared to a fast food delivery, where a cheeseburger, hhotdogtd anddffriesi couldld costt more than £20.
He said: “It’s not expensive. You get more food with us, better quality, cooked perfectly. Lots of people use delivery services all the time and are being robbed blind for horrible, mass-produced food.”
The £ 20 set will include two nuggets made from breast meat, lardo and smoky onions, plus a strip of chicken, a thigh and a drumstick.
These come with fries, aioli and a radish pickle made with seaweed vinegar.
The skewers, which will cost £1.40 each, are based on the 18 traditional Japanese recipes for grilled chicken. At first James plans to sell 10 of them, using gizzards (the chicken’s digestive tract), liver, heart, wing tips and skin.
James, who has worked at Gordon Ramsay’s restaurants in London and at Raymond Blanc’s Le Manoir Aux Quat’Saisons, was planning to open a restaurant in Edinburgh before lockdown.
But until the world gets back to some kind of normality, he will be grilling and frying chooks.
He said: “I very much enjoy cooking food that’s not fried chicken. I will open a restaurant you sit in at some point. Right now, I’ll light the grills and see what happens.”
I want try people to and skewers the nd what understa we’re trying to do