Go to the Article: You tell us: What makes fried chicken so darn good?
My gold-standard for fried chicken is Willie May’s Scotch House in New Orleans. The meat is brined and deeply flavored. The batter is thin but spicy, cooked up dark and shatteringly crisp. I believe they put a bit of oil in their batter, but I could be mistaken. It’s some of the best I have ever had. I’ve tried to replicate it, but have always fallen short.
There has to be a way to make it happen easier at home! Something describing the work flow for straining, saving, storing, and re-using the oil would be great. Something to minimize splattering, ideal temperatures. For instance - I understand that oil temp drops when cold food is added, how quickly do I need to get the temp back up to the target? How at risk is the food to get too oily if I don't?
For the chicken itself - craggly and crunchy is the way to go for me. I find even some of the best fried chicken ends up with flabby skin underneath that beautiful crust, there has to be a way to make this better right?
Boneless skinless chicken thighs. Crispy breading that is rigid and flakes around the thigh. I pinch the dredge around the chicken and that helps get those flakes. I've been messing around with using Crisp Film and Crisp Coat from Modernist Pantry and I've had some amazing results.
For me I love it all but my fried chicken nirvana is Korean fried chiken with cornstarch and flour and marinating in onion and spices before the coating. Crisp beyond measure. For regulare freid chicken I like either brining or buttermilk soaked with spices to guarantee juicy. I agree craggy pockets in the crust are wonderful.
I’ve made fried chicken only a couple of times, long ago. Double dredged and fried in oil that had a slice of bacon cooked in it just prior, then taking the bacon out before frying the chicken. I don't remember much else, but it was well received. I look forward to your findings!
It may be heresy, but I would hope you look into oven "fried" chicken as well. As for batter, I like the buttermilk, spicy with a thin, crunchy finale. Breasts are nice, but nothing wrong with a boneless thigh either!
Chicken that’s still good and not greasy at room temp and/or cold. Leftovers!
Smell
Crunch
Texture
Flavor
Memories
One of the best fried chicken dishes I've ever had is Tong Dak dish (they do cut it up in pieces) at a nearby Korean joint. They have tempura style breading that is perfectly adhered, and the chicken inside is always done just right.
This is difficult because we need to be gluten free due to my daughter having Celiac. Lately my go to has been Hawaiian style friend chicken. Basically boneless skinless thighs brined in tamari, water, sesame oil, garlic, ginger, and a touch of sugar. After about 1 1/2 hours you take it out of the brine, dry if off a bit and dredge in potato starch then refrigerate for an hour or so. Fries up light and crispy and well seasoned. I have yet to be able to recreate a good "southern style" fried chicken that is gluten free.
Memories!! My mom’s was better than mine. Would enjoy a Sous vide with a flash fry crust idea
Juicy meat so brining is a must. Dark meat better than white. Crust thin, but crispy. Crust needs to be seasoned properly and spicy. Nothing more disappointing than a perfect looking piece of fried chicken that has no zip when you bite into it.
There is no doubt that the best fried chicken uses buttermilk.
I’ve toyed with corn flake batter, panko flakes. But it is buttermilk that does the trick.
Plenty of salt and some cayenne and black pepper, of course. And onion and/or garlic powder? Some fresh, chopped oregano? I say yes.
While sous vide is superb — separating out the cooking of the bird from the batter — even better results are had by injecting a brine at least 6 hours before sous vide and then fry.
Craggy layers, crunchy, buttermilk drenched (maybe some spices pickle juice too)? Breasts, thighs & drumsticks!
Chicken & waffles (maybe a sweet potato waffle recipe?)
Hot honey
Sous Vide style juicy interior
Herbs & spices in the crust
Love Screen Door and Yonder in Portland, OR are fantastic!
I’d love some more ideas for sides too!!!
Thank you for all you do! Love your work!! Big fan.
I like all kinds of fried chicken...but always go back to the way my grandmother did it. First...FRESH chicken..I mean really fresh. Cut up, salted well...set aside for awhile...often for a couple of hours in the fridge. When ready to fry, rinse off..dried off and peppered......Rolled in flour..that’s it just flour. Fried in peanut oil in a well used cast iron skillet. Delicious hot...room temp or ice cold the next day for lunch or a picnic. Memories taste good!!! That said...the Sous vide chicken...battered and deep fried is excellent. My grandmother would have LOVED Sous vide.
This was the perfect balance of sweet, spicy, umami, crispy, juicy, fatty, salty, everything.. Best fried chicken I've ever made. I was a bit loose with the recipe and didn't write it down but here is more or less what I made:
I butchered a whole chicken and brined it in 3 cups buttermilk, a 1/3 cup salt, small handful of brown sugar (20 grams or so) and 1.5 cups lacto-fermented fresno hot sauce I made a week earlier.
I brined everything for 8 hours.
I made a large amount of spice blend consisting of cumin, cayenne, paprika, coriander, salt, black pepper, chili powder, all spice, clove, cardamom, and Szechuan. (aaaaaand maybe a pinch or two of MSG... shhh)
the dredge consisted of a few tablespoons of the spice blend, AP flour, crisp-coat, and a few tablespoons of the brine.
batter bind was used before the dredge.
before frying a made a spice/lard sauce in the style of Nashville hot chicken for basting after it came out of the fryer.
shallow fried in lard at 375 (skin-side down first) until it was all golden.
pulled it out, based with the spice-fat, dusted with some more spice mix, and drizzled with some fermented garlic honey.
Love this, sounds very similar to a karaage recipe (which is my go-to for GF fried chicken).
For 'southern style' I used to do buttermilk bath, then into 100% tapioca flour (+ seasonings) - a recipe from proposition chicken in SF. It's pretty good, but I've had issues with the crust going a little gummy (as tapioca flour does) once the chicken is removed from the fryer. Probably due to steam/moisture trying to escape.
These days I do a blend of about 50% tapioca, 30% rice, 20% potato.
I love how versatile fried chicken is, and how you can change the final outcome dramatically just by switching around the flavours/starches. Whether the crust is thick or thin, there's still gotta be some textural contrast, gotta have some crunch - even if covered in sauce. The 'best' fried chicken doesn't exist, but there's a perfect fried chicken for every mood: Karaage, katsu, southern-style, dry, saucy, you name it. Breast is great, but thigh is king.
I fry at home - I use an enameled dutch oven, and when I'm done I filter the oil through a v60 lined with paper towels so I can get a couple of uses out of it.
8-cut chicken (Yes, organic cage-free, local is better, cut it yourself). Brine 1 hour. Drain, Sous vide 165 deg with the buttermilk. Heavily seasoned flour dredge - 11 herbs & spices blah blah, include ginger and cumin. Fry 375 deg til crunchy. I'll eat all the crust first.
Coating chicken simply with potato starch or even rice flour is, to me, the very best crust.
I enjoy any fried chicken that I didn't have to make or clean up after. Bonus if it's not under a grocery store heat lamp or in a bucket. To be clear, I am not throwing a 16 price dark and spicy from Popeyes out the window. (Can't say the same for thier biscuits) But, if I were to make my own and cooking method/clean up did not play a role. I would do thigh. 3 of them. Craggy. Spicy. Salty. Juicy. Like, hot chicken juice 💣 mouth coatingly, juicy. If it was a thinner crust, like Willie Mae's, but still juicy salty and spicy... That's cool too.
Having made your can't f' 'em up twice... MORE crunchy crusty. Everything else is great in your approach:juicy, tender, cooked well, flavorful. But more crunchy crust factor!
The skin and breading must be one! If I were to draft commandments for fried chicken, the batter needs to stay on the damn chicken would be number one!
Sous vide fried chicken recipes almost always have this problem, same with the more bougie chicken places. They can't get their damn batter to stay on the chicken like a Popeyes or Church's can.
Having the meat appropriately salted all the way through is one of the things that makes for top quality fried chicken.
I love all fried chicken, but gravitate towards thin glassy batter, like Korean style.
I have been aching to try Dave Chang’s cold fried chicken. I hear it really is that good. If you could reverse engineer that, it would be suh-weet!
For me there are 4 critical aspects.
1. It's got to be juicy, or at least, not dried out
2. The meat itself must be flavorful. A big chunk of unsalted, bland breast meat is not awesome even if the batter is awesome.
3. You need the right ratio of batter to meat. I don't want a giant fried breast. Give me something with a higher batter to meat ratio, like a thigh.
4. As someone else said, the batter has to stick to the meat. If it falls off like a shell, meh.
If you hit all those marks... then crunchy or crispy, dark or light mean ... it's all good. But I prefer boneless thighs and a medium-thick crunchy KFC-style batter.
For bonus points, the chicken should hold up cold the next day, staying crispy. We have a chicken chain up here that does that, I don't know how, but it is magic.
I am looking forward to see what ChefSteps can do for us.
Has anyone used a pressure fryer? I have seen pressurized deep fryers for chicken on eBay, but I am kind of scared to try one, hah.
I have only made fried chicken on one occasion, so I can't speak much from experience. It did turn out well though. I believe I used the recipe from Amazing Ribs for the crust (the crunchiness was great), this recipe for the crust seasoning, dill pickle juice for the brine & peanut oil for frying (both to give it a Chick-fil-A like flavor), and served it up with Nashville Hot sauce. While it was good, something was a little off with the dill flavor. I may have let it marinade too long, or it may have just been better without the dill pickle juice.
Breasts are the only way I go with fried chicken. The meat must be perfectly salted, and moist. There must not be any flabbiness to the skin. As another commenter said, the skin and the breading must be one. I may have even removed the skin when I made it, I can't remember. I just know that I hate any sign of skin.
salting / dry brining way beforehand is my only chicken rule. When I sous vide chicken I actually leave out oil/fat (it seems to reduce the flavour rather than add to it?) but the plain salted breast always tastes the best...
there is one problem to your sous vide fried chicken, the crispiness and crunchiness does not last long, it is soggy and bready ....but the meat is so juicy and tender...
Hello all,
In my opinion brining (dry or wet), double breading and seasoning with salt, garlic and onion powder, smoked paprika and dried thyme would do the job, but for me the most important part is the deep frying process. I got the best results when I double fried first in 170 Celsius (338 Fahrenheit), rest them for 15 minutes and fried them again at 210 Celsius (410 Fahrenheit) until golden brown.
Popeyes Style Crust texture, they nail the cragginess.
Nashville spice option.
Super flavorful meat (clearly brined).
To me there is no one best fried chicken - I think lots of different treatments can be pretty darn good.
My wish list for a foray into fried chicken:
Am looking forward to this!
Love fried chicken. Definitely go the brining route rather than soaking in milk and always lots of spice to it. I personally prefer dark meat to white and the crust has to be crispy and have some good texture to it. Not to thin. I found that frying the chicken first and then finishing off in the oven is my preferred technique, and have to let it cool off on a rack for at least ten minutes or so to let the crust/ skin crispen up.
I wish someone could figure out what Popeyes or church's secret is. may have to get a job there and then report back to the team.
Looks delicious. I'm not familiar with "crisp-coat" or "batter bind", could you elaborate?
This about sums it up for me.
