Go to the Article: You tell us: What makes fried chicken so darn good?
MSG is almost ubiquitously used in fried chicken places in my country. So for me, it's essential for getting the taste I'm after. I use a faux KFC spice blend that's equal parts black pepper and white pepper. My flour dredge is actually 15% salt and 1% MSG by bakers percentage. The salt seems ridiculously high I know but this is essentially the seasoning for the entire piece of chicken. There is also potato starch in the flour dredge which comprises about 5% of the dredge. Making it more crispy. It's shockingly close to KFC's.
Korean Fried Chicken... wings, legs, thighs. Nothing else to say!
I have somebody in my life that would *love* some fried chicken, but has allergies to wheat (not so much to gluten, but to wheat). Can you please include some recipe that achieves a great crust without the use of wheat.
I imagine something like pre-cooking the chicken to a finished temperature, and then finishing with a spiced tempura batter might work, but there might be a better way to accomplish that.
I’ve had great results brining in buttermilk (powdered is cheaper), cooking sous vide, dredging, spraying with cooking spray, and air frying.
Try it without oil — or nearly without...
You get a "kind of Wiener Schnitzel" - chicken side
Prepare the bone-less chicken thighs as usual to your taste.
Take a soft and wide brush and brush the ready-made tights on both sides heavy with oil. Place the tights immediately on a perforated rack with holes, set the oven to 200 /210 º Celsius for 30 minutes and use 20% steam (if you own a steam oven - if not, read below)
Place another rack below the one with the chicken with some wet paper towels and soak the towels with at least 250 cc water. That will soak up the overflow oil and avoids spatter and fume.
If you don’t have a steam capable oven, then use more towels and fill the second rack with 500cc water. That should do the trick.
You save a huge amount of oil and the outcome is in crispiness and juiciness on par or even better compared to the traditional way — bet anyone?
AND -
you save 90% oil and reduce waste.
ChefSteps, I look forward to what you come up with, but do not add heat to the chicken for the sake of adding heat. I see too many chefs adding so much heat to a dish and now the heat over powers the dish. Remember, less is more.
I agree with you.
Chik-fil-A has the best fried chicken and the best dipping sauce, hands down.
The easiest recipe is the ChefSteps method, which I always default to. Cook them sous vide, then dredge in buttermilk, flour (with spices mixed in), then quickly fry until it looks good. I've never gone wrong.
But my favorite tasting recipe... was one from America's Test Kitchen, that involved brining for almost a day in buttermilk with garlic and spices. Then draining, resting, dredging, another rest, and frying (for longer because they need to actually cook now)... but it's a lot more labor-intensive, more expensive (because you use about 2 bottles of buttermilk, in addition to all the fresh garlic and other stuff), and a lot messier in the end. I haven't done it very often. Maybe 2 or 3 times.
I do want to try a mixture of the two... maybe brining in the buttermilk and garlic, then sous vide? (Not sure how I feel about hot buttermilk...) But ultimately, when I say "I want Fried Chicken", I'll go with the ChefSteps method.
I like this. Although never have leftovers but love to try this.
This : https://youtu.be/ninR1UBkx-0
I brine chicken with a solution 500gr of sugar and 450 gr salt and brine for 2 day then. I air dar for one day and slow cook for 1.90 at 80 degrees. then I mix my batter with some jerk seasoning and deep fry in coconut oil
Everywhere I travel, I find the local "chicken joint". I get 8 pieces, eat 1/2 hot, save 1/2 for later to get a good sense of their process. I prefer dark to white, and med thick crunchy craggy crust that stays together. The skin must be crispy and conjoined with the crust. Interior should be moist , but not wet, and seasonings must be balanced .Not a big fan of brine... unless salt is low. If its too salty it takes away from the true flavor of the meat. The last thing would be piece sizing. If a place uses a large overgrown bird ,or uses tiny pigeon size chickens, its usually not very enjoyable.
Dark meat if cooking at home, but WHITE meat if eating out. A homemade batter/breading and seasoning is always gonna be better than what I can get at a Chic-Fil-A or KFC. But what I can't do is PRESSURE FRY. Thighs are my go to at home because they won't taste like spit if I overcook them by a degree or two. That said, a thoroughly brined, properly cooked chicken breast wins in taste and texture any day. It's just near impossible to get both that and a crispy breading without a commercial pressure fryer. If chefsteps could science a solution, I'd be most impressed.
I'm a lifelong "cookologist" that graduated to Modernist Cuisine nearly a decade ago but I gotta tell ya- when it comes to Fried Chicken, the Colonel is hard to beat. I can do it with a kimchee buttermilk brine and koji but does that qualify as Fried Chicken? My family says "No". So, I bet you guys could amplify KFC's secret blend and make that bird cluck a lot louder.
this can happen even with non-sous vide fried chicken with a good crust
For me, it's a crisp, glassy exterior, combined with juicy well seasoned meat, and a sauce with a TON of flavor and an adjustable amount of heat. I'm like a bird with how I like scoville-spice, but my friends are not.
Dark meat. Spicy, super crispity crunchy skin. Tender meat inside. If you have leftover fried chicken for the next day, throw into a pot with 2 cups white rice, 1 tsp chicken bullion and 1 tbsp seasoned soy sauce and left over chicken in the rice cooker and you have incredible chicken rice the next day.
Publix, here in the south, makes some pretty great fried chicken.
A nice crispy skin is best because it creates a nice balance between moist meat and crunch, without being too thick and scratching the roof of my mouth. The best fried chicken is actually not in the American way of preparation but rather the Nasi Lemak version. What makes it the best is not only all of the aromatics but specifically...shrimp paste. Chicken and shrimp are a marriage made in food heaven. Trust me.
Gulfstream restaurant's chopped salad features the perfect fried chicken tenders. Would love to figure out their recipe. Perfectly seasoned, perfect batter, great crunch, tasty seasoning, all that and a great salad.
I love the crunch. A nice thick coating is best, especially if you’re going to brush sauce on like for Nashville hot chicken. What I hate is when I bite into the coating and it falls off the meat. Absolute tragedy.
Willie Mays' in New Orleans and Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc in Yountville are at the top of my list.
I think that the highest crispy crunch exterior should be achieved that you can still decern a piece of skin from the chicken. My problem with Korean fried chicken pieces is that the batter coating is so thick that it is almost impossible to identify which part of the chicken you are picking up.
Super crunchy but thick crust, a little spicy (i.e. heat), NO GARLIC and just a little greasy. Absolutely not brined - just use excellent quality real live pasture raised chickens. BBQ ("better best quality") Korean Chicken is my go-to example of the world's best fried chicken.
Juicy chicken, and crunchy SPICY/FLAVORFUL crust! 😋
Meat glue fried chicken - meat glue to hold together thigh mwat and great meat for a best if both worlds? What if this studded with Pimento cheese? Or a garlic herb butter kike a fried chicken kiev?
Super crunchy and drizzled with honey brown butter.
Texture: Crisp (obvi), and dryer without much oil on my hands when I'm eating. Inside is nice and juicy and the chicken is a bit stringy. Flavor: Nice spice on the outside without overwhelming with salt.
Korean way! Super crispy and with a sweet and spicy gochujang sauce!
A friends Mother fried chunks of ham steak In the oil before she fried the chicken in her skillet, gave a richness to the chicken. My go to fried chicken is Kennedy chicken in Brooklyn that had the amazing ability to remain crunchy cold.
Please figure out a way to avoid the inevitable flabby skin under the crust of sous vide fried chicken.
Something magical happens when chicken meets hot oil! My favorite fried bird is southern style fried chicken which I regularly make at home. I like dark meat so I go all thighs. When I sous vide the chicken I usually add rosemary, parsley and bay leave to the bag. Buttermilk dip for flavor and a double dip in seasoned (but not too seasoned) flour for crunch. Right after I take the chicken out of the oil I season the thighs with Maldon salt and chopped fresh rosemary.
Chicken Fried Chicken with cream gravy is also great. I sometimes use crushed Lay's potato chips for the second coating and serve with a Hatch chile sauce when they are in season.
My favorite recipe is from the KoreaTown Cookbook. The batter makes for a supremely crisp coating and the flavors are robust and lively. And I prefer dark meat any day.
If I'm in the mood for southern fried chicken, PopEye's is great!
