Hey, I’m trying to make fried chicken. I MUST today, for the sake of my future confidence and the joy of my day TODAY. I want to use chicken breast, thighs are too fatty for me.
How? I’m looking up recipes but they all seem so disingenuous. I know that sounds stupid, but I thought maybe asking real people would give me a better chance.
Chicken breast, buttermilk. Those are the only ingredients I feel like I must use. Anyone have any advice on the fried chicken? I’ve got regular canola oil, olive oil, extra virgin, and I’m waiting to visit the grocery store. I was about to go but I just don’t feel confident. Please, anyone have a list of ingredients worth using together?
I got u
Butterfly the breast to halve its thickness. Slice it into strips about 1 inch wide lengthwise. You should get as many as 8 long strips per breast
Make a marinade of 2 parts buttermilk to one part pickle juice from a jar of dill pickles. Feel free to add a few shakes of chili, paprika and garlic powder. Marinate the breasts like 2 hours, or overnight.
For the dredge you can use any of plain flour, cornmeal, breadcrumbs (plain!), crushed up cornflake cereal, crushed up rice flake cereal. 2-3 cups. Add salt, black pepper, chili, paprika, garlic powder and a small handful of Parmesan cheese from the green can. Some oregano flakes wouldn’t kill you either. Dump it all into a big bowl or a tray, and combine with a fork or whisk.
Get a heavy pot and a quart or two of neutral oil: vegetable, peanut, corn or avocado. Don’t use olive oil. Add it to the pit and gently raise heat. Use a thermometer, and get it to about 365°F.
Lay out a clean tray with a rack. Take individual pieces of chicken from the marinade, shake off excess, and cover it in the dredge mix. Move it to the rack to “tack up” for a few minutes. If it seems too wet, dredge it again.
When you have all the tenders dredged, take about 6 of them and lay them gently into the oil away from you so you don’t splash yourself with hot oil. Fry them 5 minutes or so til the crust sets up light brown and crispy. Gently move them back to the rack. Let the oil come back up to 365 and repeat for the remaining pieces. If the oil doesnt completely cover the pieces splash hot oil over with a spoon (“baste”), or gently turn with tongs
When all the chicken is fried, raise the heat up to 385. Carefully return all of the chicken pieces to the fryer for 2-3 minutes until golden brown. Remove pieces to a paper towel lined plate and shake a little salt over top to taste.
Gonna disagree here, but not with your process.
The thing that people want from fried chicken is really that the breading holds, and it’s not too salty. That’s pretty much it.
If you want a sure fire way of a light breading that sticks, just do the easiest thing ever… double fry it. This is how Southern Fried Chicken got it’s texture and crispyness, though if you Google this, you’ll get a bunch of bullshit momblogs that have no idea what they are doing.
Do what this poster says, but fry once for a few minutes to a light golden color, then bring them out for 5m rest and set of the breading, then back in for another few minutes tops until they are browned, but not burnt.
I’m a lousy Yankee and I have a love/hate relationship with KFC. That dredge mix upthread (my preference is the flour base with a teaspoon of baking powder, omit salt) gets close to what I love about the KFC crust without a pressure fryer
But I do love me some plain flour (and baking powder) crust too. 🍻
This is it, OP
Thank you. I couldn’t get the pickle juice but we’ll make it work. I’ll post photos once I’m done.
Thank you ALL, I really fucking appreciate the love I feel here.
Thank
Pro Tip: Before breading the chicken sprinkle a bit of the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients. Use a fork or slotted spoon to dip and sprinkle.
This creates little nuggets of coating that will give your finished food a bit more crunch.
YES SIR/MA’AM. That sounds delicious
Sir, but Dru is fine. Happy cooking!
Protip: sieve out the beads later and deep fry those too.
Between grue and justanotherperson, they nailed exactly how my mamaw did it. The double fry is essential for the texture and even cooking, and you ain’t getting better than buttermilk and pickle juice as a brine.
I absorbed this from Cooks Illustrated, years ago: unless you’re deep frying your chicken, the best option is to start in shallow oil to brown the coating, then finish in the oven to cook the meat.
It’s very difficult to shallow-fry chicken.
my mom always made fried chicken in the oven. the ‘oil’ was just a stick of margarine (back when it was all 80% oil) and a stick of butter (per pan, 9x13). the breading was just a basic flour-based coating. best fried chicken i’ve ever had.
brine chicken breast in buttermilk,
bread with flour,
then beaten egg,
then panko,
put in 350f oil,
take out when brown,
if not at 165f, finish in the oven.
no recipe. needed fam.
If you’re using chicken breast, I recommend tenderizing it with a meat mallet so the breast isn’t thicker than a half inch. These cook stupid quick and always come out perfect. I make em now out of seitan but they taste close enough for me and i can fool people if its in a sandwich.
I just did some drumsticks last night.
before you start, make sure you have a tin can or glass jar for oil disposal.
soak your meat in buttermilk for several hours. shake with heavily seasoned flour. <- this is where your “recipe” will come in. Salt, pepper, whatever kind of herb mix you like. allow to rest for a while so the flour sticks. preheat oven to 350°F in a large frypan put in enough oil for about an inch of depth. don’t use olive oil. vegetable oil is fine, others will give a different taste. other common ones are peanut oil and crisco shortening. heat the oil over medium-high until it is around 375°F fry chicken in batches until brown. turning pieces after 3 or 4 minutes when the pieces are brown all over, put each on a rack over a sheet pan (or just a sheet pan with foil or parchment paper) bake chicken until done to 165°F, maybe 20 minutes
you can also do “oven-fried” which isn’t quite the same, but gives good results without the mess of the oil.
Commenting to see what answers you get. I tried many times to make fried chicken. Only thing I can do so with success is drumsticks. Every recipe and YouTube video I followed not worked. Breast, theighs I get either crispy outside but under cook inside. To get it cooked to eatable temp always burns the breading. Don’t know what to do myself to cook perfect fried chicken but love to know.
Never be afraid to finish wings in the oven, mate. The outside will hardly cook much more and you can take your time bringing the middle to temp.
Cook to chicken through at a lower temp, then when everything is done, raise heat and flash-fry the breading to finish. I posted the technique in another top level
I let my raw chicken sit out of the fridge to come up a bit in temp. That and I’m a fan of double frying
Please, we need help
I trust Julia @ America’s Test Kitchen with my life:
Thank you friend. I love you
Another thank you to all the comments. I apologize for the lack of photos, I got shitfaced instead. BUT TONIGHT, IN 12ISH HOURS, I will have delicious fried chicken in my camera roll to post here and then it will perish in my stomach, and I will remain.
And I’ll say, “yum.” With so much passion, and nobody will care. I mean… I will. NEVER DISCOUNT YOUR OWN EXPERIENCE, it leads to darkness not worth visiting.
I apologize. And at the same time, I am very mad. I’ll digest that in my dreams, though, probably. But I scream it here anyways, politely? Love me? Oops
If you’re open to something a little different, Japanese fried chicken is awesome and very simple to make. This recipe works well for me.
I’m at the grocery store please
Note you can also filter the oil into a jar when you’re done so that you can reuse the oil.
Tips: write the type of protein you used the oil for, type of oil, first use date, and number of uses. Should be good for a couple weeks. Store in a cool dark room.
Or freeze it. And you’re spot on. Mom saved bacon grease for cooking and kept it rotated. Good tip!
Canola oil works. Peanut oil tastes better but costs a bit more.
You’ll want flour for American style. Corn starch for Korean style.
Let me find some of my favorite recipes
American: https://www.bigoven.com/recipe/southern-fried-chicken/220278?utm_medium=yummly&utm_source=yummly&utm_campaign=yummly This one looks close to the recipe I go with, except it has onions.
Korean: https://www.jocooks.com/recipes/korean-fried-chicken/?utm_medium=yummly&utm_source=yummly&utm_campaign=yummly Basically it’s fried chicken that gets covered in a delicious sauce. Buying the ingredients for the first time could add up, but once you have them you can make fried chicken at the drop of a hat
This seems like a repost - sure I’ve read this exact post before.
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I can’t understand. I try, but I can’t hate reality. I hope for a place to be able to speak and not be punished for it. Things are changing. Will we stick to our old ways?
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