Recreating the Plaza Inn’s Chicken and Taters

The Plaza Inn seems to be a bit of an obsession for me this year.  And since I enjoy recreating foods from Disneyland (Tigger Tails, Blue Bayou gumbo, and the Pixar Fest cake), I thought it was time I tried my hand at making the Plaza Inn’s famous fried chicken and ridiculously yummy mashed potatoes.

I did indeed find the recipes online, and they’re pretty simple, with a few exceptions that I think account for the delightful flavor.  For starters, the fried chicken is soaked in buttermilk overnight to make it extra juicy.  And the mashed potatoes contain a very interesting flavor that I couldn’t identify…until I learned of the mystery ingredient.  Cream cheese!  Say what!?

Part tater, part butter, part cream cheese…all nummy.

The fried chicken was also interesting, in that it was fried first, then baked in the oven.  It was quite delicious, though the skin ended up rather soggy.  Not sure what we can do about that in the future.  The mashed potatoes, to my great joy, also had the interesting flavor I had so enjoyed at Disneyland, though the cream cheese flavor was a bit strong because I failed to add milk.  I like thick mashed potatoes, but next time, I think I’ll add milk to make the taters a bit less thick and sticky.  But it’s kind of nice to finally know what made those mashed potatoes so darn special.

Enjoy the Plaza Inn at home…minus the biscuit and green beans.  Because beans are gross.

Well, this post is already quite hearty, what with these photos of great food, so I think I’ll end this here.  And in case you want to make this meal yourself, here are the recipes for the fried chicken and mashed potatoes that I found online.

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