A Korean Roast Chicken Feast That Boasts a Glorious Bed of Browned, Crunchy Rice
In this video food critic, Mathew Kang goes to Nurungi Chicken in Dallas to check out an innovative new dish made with Rotisserie Chicken cooked in an authentic Renato Rotisserie!
For me an unsung hero of the Korean food canon is the bottom of the rice cooker, which yields this browned — sometimes crunchy, sometimes toothsome — burned rice called nurungji. It’s usually the best part of any rice plate, echoed by dishes like paella and stone pot bibimbap.
While in Dallas for K-Town, I heard about a South Korean franchise called Nurungji Chicken that’s working scorched rice into an otherwise pretty simple rotisserie chicken dish. Here’s what they do: first they rotisserie the chickens with a special wood-fired oven. Then they take rice that was stuffed into the chickens and lay it out on a hot plate, placing the chicken on top while the rice browns nicely into nurungi. Then they’ll either top the whole chicken with a rainstorm of corn and melty cheese, or they’ll douse it with a spicy rice cakes — which reminds me so much of home. It’s a little insane, maybe even ridiculous, but totally satisfying."
