Toh Thye San Chicken Farm Scions Start Home-Based Biz Selling Fried Chook From Their Bungalow

Chicken runs in the veins of the Toh cousins, who both work in their family biz started by their grandpa, which runs among other food businesses, the artisanal butcher shop Mr Farmer in Hougang and Toh Thye San Farm. The latter biz has a farm in Johor Bahru that raises the free-range GG French Poulet, a prized breed of chicken from Sabres, France, that is cage-free, antibiotic-free and hormone-free. The cousins declined to elaborate which restaurants their family's farm supplies chickens to, but Toh Thye San Farm’s official website lists Michelin-starred brands such as Burnt Ends, Candlenut, Les Amis, and Imperial Treasure among their clients.

Naked Chicken too uses the fancy GG French Poulet (branded “Anxin” in Singapore to mean peace of mind in Mandarin because you can rest assured their birds are free from the nasty stuff) for their fried chook. “Keeping things as natural as possible really helps to bring out the flavour and texture of the chicken. The meat is very tender and it holds on to the juices really well,” shares Kenneth, who takes care of marketing and design at Mr Farmer.

“We feed our chicken a 100 percent vegetarian diet so it is lower in sodium, fats, and cholesterol. Size-wise, it is a little smaller than the regular chicken that you get at the supermarket, but that’s ’cos a lot of them have been given growth hormones which make them bigger.”

Instead of plunging into a full-fledged business, Kenneth and Xin Hui decided to start small, churning out fried chicken from the kitchen of their family’s three-storey bungalow. Currently, their chook is only available for lunch orders on weekends (Friday to Sunday), with a limit of 12 orders each day.

“This is like a passion project. We only do this on the weekends ’cos we have other obligations like Mr Farmer. We want to try it out and see what the market is like first. Sometimes our chicken gets sold out immediately, sometimes it doesn’t, so we are still trying to see what works best and bring down delivery cost,” says Kenneth.

From cooking to marketing, the pair handle everything themselves. Kenneth, who’s always had an interest in pixel art, is the brains behind the brand’s fun logo and marketing materials. He’s also the resident cook, though he admits he had never made fried chicken prior to starting the biz.

“I started enjoying cooking when I was in university in Melbourne. I usually cook pasta and Japanese food, but I haven’t had the time to do it since I returned last year. I only learned the fried chicken recipe from my parents a few months ago. I felt I should start learning how to make the things that I like to eat,” he laughs.

It took the cousins around three weeks to perfect the recipe. Chicken is marinated overnight in salt and pepper, then dredged in a potato starch batter and deep-fried just before pick-up. They wanted to keep the recipe as simple and close to the original as possible, without added spices or extra seasoning, hence the name Naked Chicken. This also allows customers to “taste the flavour of the chicken”.

“A lot of people mentioned that it reminds them of fried chicken they used to eat when they were younger, and that it tastes familiar and feels like home, which is nice to hear,” he says, though they had to tweak the recipe slightly after receiving feedback that the crispiness didn’t hold well during delivery. “It was never an issue for us when we cooked it at home ’cos we ate it immediately.”

Apart from fried chicken, they also sell fried chicken ribs, which are made the same way. Kenneth tells us that only the top four ribs, which are bigger and meatier, are used. Ribs are usually discarded but to reduce wastage, Kenneth’s dad suggested frying them a few years ago and it turned out to be one of their family’s favourite snacks.

“Naked Chicken customers really enjoy it too. The ribs could be more popular than our whole fried chicken ‘cos it is something people have not tried before,” laughs Kenneth, adding that they hope to offer other less commonly eaten parts of the chicken like the butt, cartilage, as well as sides like coleslaw, mash potatoes and fries soon.

“What I am focusing on is not how much we sell but the reaction from customers and so far, it has all been really good. We want to do things at a comfortable pace. We are looking at doing evening orders and building a solid menu, before maybe opening a physical store next year.”

The full bucket comes with eight pieces of chicken, comprising various parts like the thigh, wing and breast. Despite the thin coating and slightly pale exterior, the fried chook was delicately crispy and tasty. The simple salt and pepper marinade complements the chicken’s natural savouriness. Anxin chicken is famed for its soft succulence and deeper flavour as opposed to your standard, bland hormone-pumped battery-caged hen. So it was no huge surprise how tender and juicy this fried chook was, even the breast meat. Those with a heavier palate may find it a little under-seasoned, but we like its wholesome, homemade quality. At $28.90 for a whole bird (around 1.3kg), it’s a tad pricier than your regular western food shop’s (a smaller spring chicken from Tenderfresh costs $18.90, for example), but not unreasonable, given the bird’s superior pedigree.

Who knew chicken ribs were a thing? These fairly meaty pieces, which look like slimmer, curved mid-joints are lean yet very tender. We prefer them to the larger pieces of breast meat as they’re more flavourful, and there’s a better skin-to-flesh ratio here so it makes it crispier and moreish. Best enjoyed with an ice-cold beer.

Order at least one day in advance via www.instagram.com/nakedchicken.sg.

Photos: Naked Chicken, Toh Thye San Farm