Wisconsin Foodie

– Luke: This week on Wisconsin Foodie: - Philip Bennett: We would like to consider ourself a soul food restaurant.

Soul food is a mixture of food from the south, and we like to tell people, "We're not fast food; we're good food."

That's our motto all the time.

She's the smart one, though.

[Heidi laughing] - Heidi Bennett: I wasn't gonna say it, but he's a good helper.

- What are we gonna do today, man?

- We are gonna season some chicken.

We mix our own seasonings.

We call it Cozzy Seasoning, where we take a few special seasonings, we mix 'em up.

- You're not gonna drop any dimes on what these seasonings might be?

- We use seasoning salt.

[Luke laughing] - I'm giddy with anticipation.

It's so hot.

Oh, my god.

It's delicious.

I wanna do some wings today, and I wanna be able to do them in kind of the way that Philip had indicated, which is to not use a buttermilk brine.

So, as you can see, we're ready for game day.

This is Cozzy Corner-style chicken wings.

Mm.

– Announcer: Wisconsin Foodie would like to thank the following underwriters: - The dairy farmers of Wisconsin are proud to underwrite Wisconsin Foodie and remind you that in Wisconsin, we dream in cheese.

[crowd cheering] Just look for our badge.

It's on everything we make.

- At Organic Valley, our cows make milk [cheery whistling] with just a few simple ingredients.

Sun, soil, rain, and grass.

[bubbles popping] And grass, and grass.

– Cow: Yee-haw!

[angelic choir music] - Organic Valley Grassmilk, organic milk from 100% grass-fed cows.

[banjo music] - Employee-owned New Glarus Brewing Company has been brewing and bottling beer for their friends only in Wisconsin since 1993.

Just a short drive from Madison, come visit "Swissconsin," and see where your beer's made.

[upbeat music] - Wisconsin's great outdoors has something for everyone.

Come for the adventure; stay for the memories.

Go wild in Wisconsin.

To build your adventure, visit dnr.wi.gov.

- With additional support coming from The Conscious Carnivore.

From local animal sourcing to on-site high-quality butchering and packaging.

The Conscious Carnivore can ensure organically raised, grass-fed, and healthy meats through its small group of local farmers.

The Conscious Carnivore, know your farmer, love your butcher.

- Feeding America Eastern Wisconsin is the largest local hunger relief organization in the state.

With your help, we ensure your neighbors in need don't have to worry where their next meal may come from.

Learn more at FeedingAmericaWI.org.

– Additional support from the following underwriters: Also with the support of Friends of PBS Wisconsin.

[clapping along with energetic music] - Luke Zahm: We are a collection of the finest farmers, food producers, and chefs on the planet.

We're a merging of cultures and ideas shaped by this land.

We are a gathering of the waters, and together, we shape a new identity to carry us into the future.

[clinking glasses] [scraping knife] We are storytellers.

We are Wisconsin Foodie .

[paper rustling] Folks often refer to the Midwest as this melting pot of cultures.

And because of that, a melting pot of cuisines.

Today, we get to meet with the owners of Cozzy Corner, Phillip and Heidi, and learn about their take on soul food and Southern cuisine in the heart of Appleton.

- We would like to consider ourself a soul food restaurant.

Soul food is a mixture of food from the south, so that would be considered like collard greens, cornbread, baked mac and cheese.

We have ribs and pulled pork.

So, we're not too heavy on the barbecue.

We're more soul food.

- It's called the Cozzy Corner with two Zs because one Z was already taken.

We're on a corner, so Cozzy Corner.

Made it two and made it work.

- The double Z is after you eat, it makes you sleepy.

[both laughing] I think Appleton was definitely ready for a place like this.

There wasn't anything around like it at the time.

The previous owners were actually the ones that opened it first-- Tasha and Mike Banks-- and we actually bought it from them.

- He was actually a food tester when Tasha opened it.

- I was actually a food tester, and I also dabbled in cooking a lot when I was younger.

Me and my brother always worked on the grill.

I cooked for all our holiday events all the time.

So, cooking was, like, a passion of mine, and we had no real restaurant experience, but we both knew how to cook.

She's a great baker.

I'm a cook.

So, you put both of us together; it just worked.

- Some days can be very long, but overall, I love it.

– Phillip: So we make everything pretty much from scratch.

All our cakes, our puddings, our gravies, our spaghettis.

– Heidi: Yams.

– Phillip: Yams, we actually peel 'em.

We like to tell people, "We're not fast food; we're good food."

That's our motto all the time.

The interior, it's everything from the south, where you have the music that originated in the south: all the blues, the R & B.

– Heidi: All the tables have different themes to 'em.

– Phillip: You got James Brown, Barry White, B.B.

King.

– Heidi: A lot of the paintings are all from local artists, too.

So, they came in and painted all of them.

- Everybody likes to eat and listen to good music.

- Enjoy some good music.

- It's all the comfort.

When you're sitting down and you're jamming to the music, it almost makes the food better.

[Phillip and Heidi laughing] We really put a lot of pride in what we do.

We're definitely a good team.

- We're very good together.

- Both thinkers.

She's the smart one, though.

[Heidi laughing] - I wasn't gonna say it, but... - She's a double major.

I'm just-- I don't know.

- He's a good helper.

- So, we are in the kitchen here at The Cozzy Corner in Appleton, Wisconsin.

What are we gonna do today, man?

- We are gonna season some chicken.

- Now is this one of those closely guarded culinary secrets?

- We mix our own seasonings.

We call it Cozzy Seasoning, where we take a few special seasonings, we mix 'em up.

- You're not gonna drop any dimes on what these seasonings might be?

- We use seasoning salt.

[Luke laughing] - Okay, seasoning salt, I like it.

So, there's salt.

If you're at home taking notes, write that one down: "salt."

- This chicken right here has already been seasoned, but we'll do it again.

– Luke: How long do you let this sit?

- We just actually let it sit probably a day.

- A day?

– Phillip: Yes, that's about it, and you turn it.

– Luke: Sure.

- You want to get it nice.

That red coloring is something that's special to our seasoning.

- Sure.

- So once it turns red, we know we got a good mix.

– Luke: Oh, yeah.

- And we like to keep it kind of moist 'cause it holds the flour better, makes it crunchier.

You don't really want it dry.

– Luke: Who wants dry chicken?

- Right.

My thing is I like the taste to be throughout the meat.

Not just the breading.

Our chicken, I like it to marinate, so you taste it in the meat.

The seasoning is good, but you want it in the meat.

Toss it in some fresh flour, shake it off a little bit.

Too much flour will mess up the grease.

– Luke: Yeah, you don't want that.

– Phillip: We got fresh grease.

- You want a basket?

- No.

- No, no basket.

– Phillip: We drop it right in there, buddy, right in there.

- Whoo.

- Keep it separate from that chicken, and we drop it right in there.

And we hit our timer, and we let it go for 15 minutes.

- 15 minutes.

On this menu, you have frog legs, you have catfish, you have chicken.

You know, what part of the south are we talking about here?

- My family's from Yazoo, Mississippi.

So we're more "south-south."

So, that south is different from "Florida south" in that the meats are different.

Like, you know, the Mississippi area, we're more smothered pork chops.

We're more smothered chicken.

We're more parts of the pig versus the gator.

So they eat chitlin, hog maw, pig feet, pig snout, pig ears, you name it.

From the rooter to the tooter, we're going to eat it!

'Cause that's how this food originated, you know?

Like in the days of slavery, we get all the slops.

So, we just make do with what we had.

That's how soul food originated through history.

Whatever was the leftovers that the plantation owners didn't eat, they'd give to the slaves.

So then the slaves made the chitlins, the pig feet.

Then you just add, you know, whatever you grew in the farm, the greens, the yams.

That's how soul food originally came about.

So, throughout time, my great, great, great, great grandma showed my great, great, great grandma whatever they were eating.

So, throughout time, we just kept it going.

Cause a lot of Midwestern people really don't know that history, you know?

- Right.

- We got history, and it needs to be told why this food is here.

What makes tacos for Mexican people, or lasagna for Italian people, you know?

So, soul food for African Americans is a deep part of our history.

[smooth music] [electronic beeping] - Uh-oh, it's go time.

This is the moment that we've all been waiting for-- the fried chicken.

I'm giddy with anticipation.

This is my giddy face.

– Phillip: All right.

- You see a plate of fried chicken like this in front of you.

What's the first thing you look for?

- The color.

- Okay, 'cause the color will let you know the seasoning.

- Okay.

- If this was any lighter, you could kinda tell a place didn't use that much seasoning because when seasoning is on the chicken, it'll turn a nice golden brown color.

– Luke: Okay.

- Overseasoning it, it would've burned the seasoning first before it even cooked the chicken.

So, this stuff, to me, is perfectly seasoned.

- This is it.

This is the moment of truth: the science, the wisdom, the love, the passion, the care, the culture, the tradition.

- You'll taste it.

- Is this mine?

- You can dig in.

Don't go too fast, cause it is hot.

- Did you see me grab that thing like I was ready to go ham on this thing?

– Phillip: It's crunchy, nice juicy, guaranteed.

- Yeah, I got the juicy guarantee.

- I promise you it will be.

- Tall order, here we go.

– Phillip: You can hear it.

- That is so crunchy.

So hot!

Oh, my god!

It's delicious.

I mean, it's awesome.

– Phillip: Still juicy?

- Still juicy!

Like, ridiculously juicy.

- The timing helps 'cause you can get it perfect.

- And perfect this is.

The crispiness of that outside, and I gotta say, like, I'm a fan of my grandma's way, which is the buttermilk, but this, this is consistently and across the board amazing!

So, you were saying earlier that you put sauce on yours?

– Phillip: Yeah.

- What sauce do you do?

- I like the spicy.

I like it hot.

- Can I try a little bit of that spicy sauce?

- See, we keep it simple.

Keep it light so it don't soggy up the chicken.

We still want you to taste the crispiness of it.

So right there is, it's perfectly done.

That was perfect.

I gotta give myself a hand clap for that one.

[Phillip chuckling] - So much perfection in this place.

I can hardly take it.

– Phillip: It's hot on hot.

- Hot on hot.

Hot on hot on hot.

Good luck, is that what I got?

Oh, man.

– Phillip: It's a good combination.

- That is dynamite.

Straight dynamite!

I mean, you get a little bit of the vinegar, a little bit of the acidity.

It is a little warm.

I mean, it's not, like, blow your face off hot, but it is delicious.

And the way that works with that crispiness.

- That's why we don't smother it.

We put the right amount of sauce on it, so you can actually, you know, taste it.

You don't want the fire to be overwhelming the food.

- That is delicious, straight up.

Thank you, brother.

We are in downtown Appleton, and this is so filled with the flavors of Mississippi and cultural traditions that you are bringing right here for people to check out.

- I appreciate you guys coming.

- Thank you for your time, man.

- Thank you.

- This is great, this is great!

I'm gonna keep eating before they take this away from me, okay?

[both laughing] [smooth upbeat music] Hanging out at The Cozzy Corner told me that I needed to up my chicken game just a little bit.

So, I wanna do some wings today, and I wanna be able to do them in kind of the way that Philip had indicated, which is to not use a buttermilk brine.

Now, I've done so many cooking segments in the past where I use my grandmother's traditional recipe, where she soaks the chicken in buttermilk.

But today, I wanna start by taking my chicken wings right here, and we're just gonna actually season 'em up.

Now, we'll wanna let this chill out for a little while.

So, about an hour and a half is usually my recommended time for letting those flavors kind of permeate and get to know each other a little bit.

But what we have in this bowl is five pounds of chicken wings.

Now, today we're gonna drop a little bit of a dual-action on these bad girls.

And this is the Penzeys 4/S.

This is Special Seasoned Sea Salt.

The reason that I like this is, is it's got a lot of red pepper notes.

It's got some cayenne, some paprika.

So you get saltiness, but you get a little bit of spice, too.

And then we're gonna hit it up with Old Bay because, quite frankly, I haven't found anything yet that doesn't taste good with a little bit of Old Bay.

So.

I'm gonna apply this pretty liberally, and for five pounds of chicken wings, we put on about two tablespoons of the Penzey spice.

And I'm gonna go back with one more tablespoon of the Old Bay.

Now, I like to put my seasonings in my hand if I'm not gonna measure 'em out.

And quite frankly, I think that there's a lot of room for variation and error, and trial and error in all this.

But the reason I put 'em in my hand is because I can feel them.

I can see that cumulative spice add up, or where I might need to add a little more or take a little bit away.

Now that I've got my chicken wings seasoned up on top, I'm gonna give 'em a good toss here.

[rattling] All right, we're gonna let these chill out.

They've been evenly coated with that spice rub, and we're gonna come back to 'em in about an hour and a half.

In the meantime, I'm gonna take my Dutch oven, and this is our standard run-of-the-mill enamel cast iron Dutch oven that you can buy at just about any big box store.

I'm gonna place inside of it about two quarts of shortening.

This happens to be Crisco, which my grandma swore made great fried chicken, and I'm gonna take her word on this one because it was great fried chicken.

We're gonna add that, but I like a little bit more flavor, too, and I like knowing a little bit of that ingredient.

So, I have right here about a pint or one pound of lard that's been rendered out from an animal.

I want this to come to about 325 degrees, and this can go nice and slow and low 'cause we want that oil to be a consistent temperature.

Okay.

While that oil is coming to temperature, we've got a little bit of downtime on our hands.

So, what we want to do is we want to make a bangin', bangin' blue cheese dressing.

Now, the recipe for this can be varied widely because, quite frankly, we have a lot of options for blue cheese here in Wisconsin.

But today, I wanna use one of my favorites, Deer Creek's indigo bunting.

This thing has got some stink!

It's blue cheese for blue cheese lovers.

The thing that I wanna do with this is I'm gonna actually take the back end of this rind, which is kind of crumbly and falling apart.

I'm gonna put that right in here.

Now, this is like an eight-ounce block of blue cheese.

And what I want to do after that is I have approximately one and a quarter cup of buttermilk that we're gonna pour right into the blender with the blue cheese.

I have three-quarters of a cup of mayonnaise, and we're gonna pop that in.

Last but certainly not least, I've got one tablespoon of lemon juice.

So, I'm gonna then take and just do a pinch of salt and a couple grinds of black pepper.

Mm-hmm.

Now we're gonna turn this thing on and let the magic happen.

[smooth upbeat music] We're gonna start with this on low, obviously, and increase the speed.

[mechanical whirring] All right, that should be pretty close.

But what we want to do now is we have this whole chunk of blue cheese left.

I want to take and pop it in right now.

And I'm gonna give this a little of a crumble.

We've got our crumbles in.

We're gonna give it just a quick pulse.

[mechanical whirring] Boom.

OOH!

Yeah, that's blue cheesy.

That's good stuff, mmm!

Let's set this aside.

So, we've let these wings marinate for about an hour and a half in that seasoning mix, and you can see it's evenly coating it.

These look fantastic.

Our oil is sitting exactly where we want it.

That means it's time to fry.

All right.

So the trick to dropping wings in the hot oil is to do it carefully.

We wanna gently lay these in.

[sizzling] I'm gonna pop a few of these in.

So, in the spirit of Philip, I wanna make sure that these wings get good and cooked because, for the amount of chicken that that guy cranks through in that restaurant, he's never had one order sent back for being undercooked.

So I'm gonna actually set a timer for myself on my watch, and I'm gonna let these wings go for seven minutes.

And then, I'm gonna flip 'em and let 'em go for another three.

That's 10 minutes of total cooking time, which should be more than enough for these chicken wings.

Why do I like wings?

I like wings because I like chicken, first and foremost, and I think wings are kind of a fun way.

It's one of those foods that you eat with your fingers, and I really like tactile foods, but I also really like wings for the accompaniments, right?

Maybe you're a ranch person.

Maybe you're a blue cheese dressing.

Maybe you like the carrot sticks.

Maybe you like the celery.

There's a lot of different ways you can garnish out the wings, and they don't necessarily stand as maybe the focal point.

You get that hot sauce.

You get, you know, the butter that we're gonna do next.

It's rich.

My mouth is watering right now because the next steps for this are kind of the crucial key steps.

All right, I'm coming up on my seven-minute mark.

So I'm gonna give these a flip.

So, a couple things that I look for when I'm cooking chicken to ascertain if maybe it's done or not.

First and foremost, I look for any moisture leaving the pieces of chicken.

And as it comes out, I'm looking to see if that moisture has color or if it's clear.

If it's clear, that's telling me that the internal temperature of that bird is somewhere above 165 degrees, which is where we want to go to kill bacteria that may be harmful to us when we eat undercooked chicken.

The second thing that I look for is that nice crispy golden skin.

Because if we're cooking this with the fryer at the right temperature, this skin should be gorgeous.

And right there is about as pretty as it gets.

So my 10-minute timer is up.

What we are gonna do is we're gonna get these out.

We're gonna get as much of that oil off of 'em as we can.

And these are looking GOOD!

Yeah, game day wings!

Mmm!

We're gonna put 'em in our steel bowl here and let that skin get a little crispy and delicious.

What we're gonna do while these wings are still hot, and we got all the smells and good feels coming off of 'em right now, I'm gonna take one half of a stick of butter, and I'm gonna toss that right in the bowl with my hot, hot wings.

We're gonna let this butter knock around a little bit.

[rattling] And that's gonna start to coat the outside of our wings.

Now, this ingredient.

Frank's Red Hot is synonymous with being the hot sauce for making buffalo wings.

I'm gonna toss this around.

And in that ratio, I use probably about a quarter cup of hot sauce to coat that wing.

[rattling] That butter with the hot sauce and that hot oil, any of those remnants help give a little stick to our wings.

The butter also helps even out like a lot of the really, really bright notes in that sauce and creates a little bit of depth and backbone.

Mmm!

I'm gonna take these wings out of the bowl.

They've been nice and seasoned.

They've been tossed around with a little bit of Wisconsin butter, a little bit of that Frank's Red Hot.

I'm just gonna load these up on my platter.

So, as you can see, [lips smack] we're ready for game day.

And this is an appetizer that even Philip would be proud of.

This is Cozzy Corner-style chicken wings.

Mm, whoa!

That's a crazy flavor explosion.

Mm.

So, with this, these aren't too hot, which I kind of like to leave the hot sauce out on the table, or if you have other hot sauces that you really want to accentuate this with, great.

Bang it out!

And make sure you have lots of napkins on hand because there's gonna be a lot of sticky fingers.

This is good eating.

[smooth upbeat music] - Now, the only thing I've never tried here: frog legs.

- Frog legs?

- I won't eat 'em.

- You won't eat the frog legs?

- The crazy thing is I've eaten elk, buffalo, bison, bear, squirrel, raccoon, rabbit, snake, gator, but I won't eat frog butt.

[Luke laughs] I won't eat the "Kermits."

– Luke: No.

- Try our frog legs for the first time ever.

[Luke laughs]] It ain't bad at all.

- It tastes like chicken.

- It tastes like chicken.

That ain't bad at all.

– Announcer: Wisconsin Foodie would like to thank the following underwriters: - The dairy farmers of Wisconsin are proud to underwrite Wisconsin Foodie and remind you that in Wisconsin, we dream in cheese.

[crowd cheering] Just look for our badge.

It's on everything we make.

- At Organic Valley, our cows make milk [cheery whistling] with just a few simple ingredients.

Sun, soil, rain, and grass.

[bubble popping] And grass, and grass.

– Cow: Yee-haw!

[angelic choir music] - Organic Valley Grassmilk, organic milk from 100% grass-fed cows.

[banjo music] - Employee-owned New Glarus Brewing Company has been brewing and bottling beer for their friends only in Wisconsin since 1993.

Just a short drive from Madison, come visit "Swissconsin" and see where your beer's made.

[upbeat music] - Wisconsin's great outdoors has something for everyone.

Come for the adventure; stay for the memories.

Go wild in Wisconsin.

To build your adventure, visit dnr.wi.gov.

- With additional support coming from The Conscious Carnivore.

From local animal sourcing to on-site high-quality butchering and packaging.

The Conscious Carnivore can ensure organically raised, grass-fed and healthy meats through its small group of local farmers.

The Conscious Carnivore, know your farmer, love your butcher.

– Additional support from the following underwriters: Also with the support of Friends of PBS Wisconsin.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel, where you'll find past episodes and special segments just for you.