What is the secret to making good fried chicken?
Two things are required for truly superb Southern fried chicken: juicy, delicious flesh and an ultra-crisp and crispy crust. Here seem to be four simple ways to accomplish both. What’s the best part? These tips will apply to any fried chicken recipe, including the classic family favourite, fried chicken sandwiches, chicken fingers, and perhaps even General Tso’s. They’ll declare you the King of Crunch for sure. If you are in the mood for some fried chicken go ahead and browse Fried Chicken Takeaway and get yourself a delicious fried chicken.
Secret #1: A salty marinade equals juicier meat in fried chicken.
How Does It Work?
Most fried chicken preparations begin with a soak in a seasoned marinade, such as buttermilk, milk and eggs, or perhaps even pickle juice. Using a high salt content in this mixture will assist keep the chicken moist.
This operates in the same way that brine does. Typical brine is a salt solution mixed with water (around 6 per cent salt by weight). The salt breaks proteins in the meat’s muscle architecture while it rests in brine, freeing it and helping it to keep more liquid as it cooks. Chickens that have been brined lose 30 to 40% less moisture compared to chickens that have not been brined.
How to Go About It
Simply use half an ounce of salt per cup of marinade to generate brine with a 6 per cent salt concentration. This is roughly 1.5 tablespoons salt per cup, Diamond’s Crystal kosher 1 tablespoon Morton’s kosher salt per cup, or 2 teaspoons normal table salt per cup.
We’ve stated before that I never brine my birds or turkeys because normal brine can dilute the meat’s flavour. On the other side, if a marinating step is already included in the recipe, applying the proper salt content will simply enhance the flavour.
Second Fried Chicken Secret: Make the Marinade with Vodka.
How Does It Work?
The addition of vodka to the marinade solution aids in the creation of a light and crunchy crust rather than one that is heavy, greasy, or leathery. What is the mechanism behind this? The liquid disappears and the breading dries as the chicken are fried. After that, the proteins in the marinade, as well as the flour, would solidify and begin to brown, imparting flavour to the crust. The crunchier the crust so the more delicious the bird, and the more and more surface area you get. Each of these areas benefits from the use of vodka. For starters, it’s a lot more volatile than water (which would be the key ingredient in buttermilk, pickle juice, and pretty much every other fried chicken marinade). As a result, it evaporates significantly faster and more rapidly. This helps eliminate moisture from the chicken’s crust faster even while increasing the surface area of the crust by generating more vapour bubbles. Crispier, lighter fried chicken is the result of both of these factors. Lastly, vodka prevents the development of gluten. Gluten is a protein web formed when flour and water are mixed. This is critical for items like bread and pizza crust, in which a flexible, chewy texture is desired because you want to keep gluten growth to a minimum for crisp crusts.
How to Go About It
Usually use an ounce of vodka (two tablespoons) for each cup of liquid in the marinade for extra-crisp crusts. (In the meantime, any high-proof spirit will do—try bourbon!)
Adding Liquid to Your Dredging Combination is Fried Chicken Secret #3.
How Does It Work?
Have you observed that while breading a large batch of chicken, the bits you bread near the finish come out crisper, crunchier, and have more surface area than the portions you bread at the beginning? As bits of marinade fall off the chicken and then into the dry seasoned flour mixture as you proceed, tiny clumps develop that adhere to the following pieces of chicken. Those clumps dehydrate, brown, & crisp as the chicken fries, bringing more flavours and crunch. So why not start with just some moisture in the dry seasoned flour combination to make use of this fact?
How to Go About It
Simply drizzle roughly two tablespoons of marinade into each cup of dredging flour recommended for the dish. Then drizzle the marinade on top and then massage it into the flour with your hands or a whisk before coating the chicken parts. It’ll make your fried chicken crunchier than before!
The Fourth Fried Chicken Secret is to Double-Fry It.
Cooking the crust eliminates water and makes it crunchy, but you can’t fry it for longer than the meat underneath cooks. If you prepare the chicken for too long, it will have an extra-crispy crust but dry, overdone meat. You get an extra-crunchy crust and meat that was still moist by frying first, letting the chicken cool fully, and then frying repeatedly.
How to Go About It
Fry your chicken as normal, and then let it sit for at most half an hour at room temp before frying it once again. You can also cool and refrigerate the chicken overnight before frying it again right before serving.
Final Words
Cooking fried chicken may seem tasty but you can make it tastier with these secrets.