How Chef Viet Pham Crafts The Perfect Sauce For Nashville Hot Chicken - Exclusive
If Chef Viet Pham is known for one thing, it's Nashville hot chicken. The restaurateur is serving up some of the best Nashville hot chicken in Salt Lake City, Utah, at his eatery Pretty Bird Chicken. Not only has his chicken been named some of the best you can get in the country, it's also so delicious that even Bobby Flay couldn't outdo it on "Beat Bobby Flay."
Of course, hot chicken with accolades like this must be paired with a sauce that's worthy of its decadence and skill. It should come as no surprise that Chef Pham has nailed that pairing down perfectly with his expertly concocted Pretty Bird sauce. It's bright, creamy, and cooling, and diners want it smothered on every bite.
Tasting Table got the inside scoop on how it's made. In an exclusive interview, Chef Pham detailed exactly how he creates the perfect sauce to compliment his crispy, spicy, and flavorful Nashville hot chicken. It's a tasty riff on Nashville's traditional comeback sauce with some added ingredients that reflect Chef Pham's culinary heritage and unmatched knack for flavors.
Viet Pham says it's all about balancing the heat with bright flavors
For those chowing down on hot chicken in Nashville, they're more than likely eating it with the city's famous comeback sauce.
"It's a combination of mayonnaise, a bunch of spices, and maybe a little bit of buttermilk to loosen it up," Chef Viet Pham said "It's good, and it's something that's been historically done with hot chicken for a very long time." Chef Pham spent years developing his own unique and flavorful take on Nashville hot chicken, so it was only natural that he would craft his own unique version of a comeback sauce to serve it with. "We have our Pretty Bird sauce, which is literally our workhorse sauce," he said.
It starts in much the same way as any other comeback sauce with a base of buttermilk and mayonnaise. Pham then elevates the sauce with some unique touches, starting with citrus.
"We put in 10 pounds of lemon juice and lemon zest," Chef Pham said. "It adds an acidity that's really refined." They also add fish sauce and a combination of spices.
The sauce gets added to every hot chicken sandwich, along with another acidic element in the form of cider slaw. The final result is a dish that is not oversaturated because the sauce "balances out the whole entire chicken."
Click here to learn more about Pretty Bird Chicken, and keep up with the latest from Chef Viet Pham on Instagram.