Crisp fried chicken laid over a buttered waffle with syrup — the Harlem supper club's after-hours plate, born for jazz musicians arriving too late for dinner and too early for breakfast.
Wells Supper Club in Harlem is the legend behind this dish: open late, it served the jazz musicians and night-shift crowd who finished work in the small hours, hungry for a meal that was neither quite dinner nor quite breakfast. Fried chicken (supper) and waffles (breakfast) on one plate solved the riddle. It became a Harlem institution and a symbol of the neighborhood's all-night creative life.
The fried chicken half is genuine protein, B12, and selenium; the waffle half is refined flour, sugar, and syrup. The plate's nutritional honesty is in the chicken — choose dark meat for more iron and zinc, and a smaller waffle made with whole-grain flour, and the savory protein anchors what is otherwise a sweet indulgence. It is occasion food, not everyday fuel.
Buttermilk-brined fried chicken served hot over a fresh waffle. The classic Harlem move is the contrast of savory salt-and-pepper chicken against the sweet syrup-soaked waffle — hot sauce often joins the syrup.
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