Trigger Fingers

Pictured with Our Black as Midnight BBQ Sauce

     So... remember in my Interview with Ben from North Market Spices how he was talking about their 'Gunslinger Rub,'? Well, I can't pass up good spice recommendations and I picked up a bag. And it was delicious, so, one evening in a mood for one of the comfort foods from my youth I decided to make up a batch of Chicken Tenders, and lo, the birth of something wonderful.

Here's What You'll Need:

1 Pound of Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast

4 Cups of Flour

1 1/2 Tablespoons of North Market Spices Gunslinger Rub

Here's What You'll Do:

1. Cut your chicken into thin strips lengthwise, about 1/8 of an inch thick.

2. Toss the Chicken Strips into a zip top storage bag with the Gunslinger Rub, make sure they are evenly coated, and squeeze the air out of the bag.

3. Refrigerate for at least an hour.

4. Put your Flour into a large shallow container, like an 8x8 cake pan, and a few at a time place the Chicken Strips in the pan, bury with flour and press down lightly to make sure the flour adheres.

5. Lay each strip in a single layer on a plate and allow to rest for at least 20 minutes at room temperature. This will give the flour time to form a little Gluten, which will help it hold together in the fryer, as well as giving the chicken time to get a little closer to room temperature. You don't want to hold raw meats between 40 degrees and 140 degrees (known professionally as 'The Danger Zone') because it gives bacteria time to breed, but a few minutes shouldn't hurt anything, and the closer your Tenders are to room temperature when they enter the fryer the less cool down you will experience from your oil, the faster and easier each piece will leave 'The Danger Zone' and the crispier the end product will become.

6. One at a time drop your Tenders into a deep fryer heated to 350 degrees Fahrenheit for approximately 6-8 minutes, or until the internal temperature reaches 165 degrees Fahrenheit. (I know, this can be tricky to determine with fried foods, but that's why you sliced them so thin Chief. Also, get a digital probe thermometer, you can get one for like, $20 and it might save someones life.)

7. Using Tongs or a 'Fryer Spider' extract your Trigger Fingers and place them on either a wire cooling rack on a sheet pan, or a couple of paper towels on a plate for a minute to wick away excess grease.

8. Enjoy with our Black as Midnight BBQ Sauce as pictured above, or with Sour Cream, or maybe even ranch dressing (I personally hate the stuff and feel like it is for people who don't want to taste food, they just want to taste ranch. I will be disappointed in you if you go for the Ranch, but unless you're one of a very small number of people I'm probably not peeking through your window to watch you eat, so I'll likely never know.)

A Day at the Market: North Market Spices

     There nestled in the North-West corner of the North Market is probably the highest concentration of flavor in Downtown Columbus, a place where volatile essential oils rattle the seeds that bind them, where piles of gold(en Curry)  and Crystal(ized Ginger) abound, the very same wealth that lead (an admittedly bewildered) Christopher Columbus across the oceans to the shores of The New World, behold: North Market Spices!
     That's where I met Ben Walters, a man of above average height and jovial disposition, and the figurative Dragon to whom this treasure horde belongs. After a few quick greetings we retired to the upper deck of the Market where it was quiet enough to speak.

C-Bus D.- "So how long have you been in business, and was it always here at The North Market?"

B.W.- " 2 years, and yeah, this is our first and only store so far."

C-Bus D.-" Wow, I'd imagine the rent here is crazy, especially for a first business."

B.W.-" No, not really. The Market is actually built as a kind of small business incubator. They want to foster small local businesses, no big chains, they don't want anything like that here."

C-Bus D.-" So, when did you find food? I mean, when did it become more a part of your life than just sustenance?"

B.W.-" It kind of started early in high school with my hate for leftovers. I'd come home late from Hockey practice and not want to reheat something. But it really blossomed more, you know, when I was in college and I was the only person who knew how to cook. If you wanted a home cooked meal I was the guy to go to for it."

C-Bus D.-" So, what got you into spices specifically?"

B.W.- " I've always liked to add flair to my food, you travel via your palate to different areas of the world. But really what got me into the store was sort of a lack of access to decent spices. There are a few other stores in town, but the one I was mostly going to in college, I could never really get there when they were open 'cause I lived and worked in the down town area. It was really just impossible to get there when they were open. Then one day I was sitting here having lunch with my Father and something had closed in the market and I said 'God, I hope they put in a spice store!' And he said, 'Ben, that's a great idea.' So I filled out an application, went through the whole process and here I am."

C-Bus D.- "So you just sort of threw it together on a whim?"

B.W.-" Yeah, I'd never done any sort of business before and it's my life now."

C-Bus D.-" So, what's your process when you make your house blend spice mixes?"

B.W.-" Sometimes it's just me playing around with different flavor combinations. Sometimes it will be a customer who brings me a blend from somewhere else that they just can't get anymore and I'll either get very close or exactly reconstruct it for them. Sometimes restaurants will come to me and they want something blended specifically for them and I'll come up with a few bases and whichever one they like I'll refine. For example, yesterday I came up with a new blend for a new taco truck, well a food truck, called 'That Food Truck,' opening this Saturday(July 14th 2012). They wanted something custom for them and I threw together a few things till they found the one they liked. It ended up really good, they were really impressed, I was really happy with it, and it was really different from anything else I've come up with before."

(Short break in the interview while we nerded out talking about how amazing Columbus food culture is...)

 C-Bus D.- "Before I found North Market Spices I had to do most of my spice shopping online, which is nice when you already know what the spices are but it feels like a gamble buying things you're not familiar with, unlike here where you can see and smell the spices first. The rest of my spice shopping was split up between about 8 specialty ethnic grocers. And honestly, after shopping around so much I can say your prices are really reasonable."

B.W.-" That's kind of the point of being here. I don't want to feel like I'm gouging people. I want a high quality product at an accessible price, and like you mentioned about going so many places, I try to buy as much of that hard to find specialized stuff and centralize it because I know there is a demand for it. "

C-Bus D.- "So, while on vacation you're on a boat, and an errant wave washes you into the briny deep. Struggling to survive you latch onto a piece of floating debris and pass out. When you come to you're on the shore of a beautiful but entirely deserted island. It turns out that the 'debris' you latched onto happens to be a solar powered temporal stasis chamber containing a lifetime supply of one spice, what do you hope is inside?"

B.W.- (Obviously struggling) "Ooooooooh, always soo hard to answer....Oh man, my tastes always change so much.. If I HAVE to choose I'm going to have to go with our new 'Gunslinger Rub'. It's a really spicy Habenero rub. It's got a great flavor and a great heat, and its spicy enough I could probably use it to preserve some stuff. My favorite thing to do with that is just rub it on some chicken wings and grill them, so simple. And it's not a traditional Southern Style Rub, we left the Sugar out of that one. We sweetened it with Sweet Smoked Spanish Paprika and Sun Dried Tomato Powder, plus Habenero has that sort of fruity sweetness along with the heat. "

C-Bus D.-"What do you hope is not in the chamber?"

B.W.-" Hmm... What do I not use? Man, I guess, and it's not that I dislike Orange Zest, 'cause I do like it. But I guess it'd be Orange Zest, I enjoy it, but I think I could make it without it."

     And with a few minutes of discussion about spices, this column, The North Market, and Columbus food our interview wound down. (I ended up trying the Gunslinger Rub, it was pretty bitchin' but I wouldn't recommend it for people who can't handle heat.)

The North Market
Trigger Fingers Made with North Market Spices 'Gunslinger Rub'