🔥 Nashville hot fried chicken
Ingredients
- 4 chicken leg quarters (about 900 g)
- Marinade: 480 ml buttermilk, 2 tbsp hot sauce, 1 tbsp kosher salt
- Dredge: 450 g plain flour, 60 g cornstarch, 1 tbsp kosher salt
- 2 tsp smoked paprika, 1 tsp cayenne, 2 tsp garlic powder
- Spice mix: 40 g cayenne, 1 tbsp smoked paprika, 1 tbsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp onion powder, 2 tsp salt, 2 tbsp dark brown sugar
- 240 ml hot frying oil (taken from the pot)
- Neutral oil for deep frying
- 4 thick slices of white bread
- Dill pickle coins
Method
- Whisk the buttermilk with the hot sauce and salt. Submerge the chicken completely, cover and chill at least 2 h, ideally overnight.
- Combine all the dredge ingredients in a large bowl.
- Dip your fingers in the marinade and flick a few drops into the dry dredge, three times over, whisking between each. Those little lumps become the crispy craggy bits.
- Combine the spice mix ingredients in a heatproof bowl, holding back the oil.
- Heat the oil to 160 °C in a large pot filled no more than halfway. Drain the chicken, press the dredge firmly onto every surface leaving no bald spots, and shake off the excess.
- Fry for 12 to 15 min, until deeply golden and the centre reaches 74 °C. Drain on a rack and rest 2 to 3 min.
- Ladle a cup of the hot frying oil (around 175 °C) onto the spice mix and whisk until smooth and red. That is the whole recipe: the chilli is carried by scorching oil, not dusted on dry.
- Dunk the chicken in the spiced oil and turn to coat all over. Set each piece on a slice of bread, add pickle coins and serve.
Adapted from Joshua Weissman (YouTube)
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