Brined Fried Chicken

We have been tinkering with this recipe for over a year now.  The impetus for the whole "make fried chicken at home" thing is that the best fried chicken I'd ever had we found at Annie Bailey's (an irish pub in Lancaster) and it is a sweet tea brined, pecan encrusted, piece of deliciousness.  It is one of my favorite foods for sure, but it's a $15 plate of chicken and potatoes and I became convinced Scott and I could do this cheaper and just as well at home.  Eating at home is much easier than trying to eat a nice meal while our kids are talking loudly and falling off of the very high table stools at Annie Bailey's (no need for someone to die while trying to get a good piece of fried chicken).

Epicurious has a recipe for brined fried chicken, but the first time we tried to make it we were worried it was undercooked and so we let it go long enough that the breading burned.  Over time we figured out that we could make it with chicken tenders if we adapted it (less salt, less time to brine) and then it was easier to make sure it was cooked enough on the inside yet only golden on the outside... So we make ours without skin, without bones and yet with all the key ingredients (salt and sugar) it is so, so good.

 Here's our version.

The ingredients that make this dish so finger lickin good.

Brine:
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup kosher salt
1 teaspoon Black peppercorns
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
1 or 2 bay leaves

For the Chicken:

1 package of chicken tenders (or chicken breasts no bones, no skin)

3 cups buttermilk

2 tablespoons plus 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt

3 cups of flour

1 Tablespoon plus 1 1/2 teaspoons paprika

2-3 teaspoons of cayenne pepper

1 Tablespoon freshly ground black pepper  

Oil for frying 

For brine:


Pour 4 cups cold water into a pot and bring to a boil over high heat. Remove from the heat and add the sugar, salt, bay leaf, peppercorns, and coriander seeds. Allow to cool completely.

For fried chicken:
1. Put the chicken in a glass baking dish and pour the brine over the chicken. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 4-6 hours.

2. Remove the chicken from the brine, remove any peppercorns stuck to the chicken, and let the chicken dry slightly on a wire rack while preparing the buttermilk and flour.

3. In a large bowl, stir together the buttermilk with 1 tablespoon of the salt. In another large bowl, stir together the flour with the remaining salt and spices.

4. Dredge the chicken in the flour. Transfer to the buttermilk, gently shaking the bowl to coat the chicken. Transfer the chicken back to the flour, being careful not to scrape off the batter. Gently shake the bowl to coat the chicken with flour, then transfer the pieces to a wire rack, again being careful not to scrape off the batter. Repeat with the remaining pieces of chicken and let dry on the wire rack for 30 minutes.

5. Pour the oil into a 5-quart pot and heat it to a temperature of 350°F. Cook over medium heat. The oil will cool to about 300°F after adding the chicken; this is the correct heat for cooking the chicken. Cook for 4-5 minutes, then turn the chicken over and cook for an additional 3-6 minutes. If the chicken gets too dark, lower the heat. Drain on a wire rack and repeat with remaining chicken. Serve hot or cold.






One final note-- if you're going to use a lot of oil 
to fry some chicken, 
it only makes sense to thinly slice up a potato or two 
to throw into that oil and the end- and turn into chips.
There were only a few, but they were really really good.  
They were crisp and much tastier than anything coming from a bag 
(sorry Martin's, but even you can't beat Scott's).
Happy frying folks! Enjoy the snow (if ya got it)...