Hello! This is Chef John from
FoodWishes.com with my recipe for Buttermilk Fried Chicken, one of my
favorite recipes of all-time, and not that hard to put together.
And, uhh, just for fun, I'm gonna show you how I break down a whole chicken,
for fried chicken. I'm gonna take off the wing tips,
those are useless. I'm gonna de-joint the wings right
where they attach to the body. Alright, the thigh, leg section comes
off. Don't be afraid to snap, and dislocate. And then that gets cut between the
drumstick and thigh. Yes, this is quick, but go back and watch it, you know 7 or 8 times,
you'll see. So once the legs and thighs are done,
i'm left with basically the carcass, which has the backbone and the breast.
You'll notice I'm using nice heavy cleaver, the ultimate tool for a chicken breakdown.
Snap the backbone like that. Cut the breast in half, and then each press gets cut in 2
pieces, you'll notice here when I cut the breasts in half, I slice down till I
hit the bone, and then I give it one pound of my hand so it goes through
in one shot, nice and clean. Otherwise you get like bone
fragments. So there's my 4 breast pieces,
my two thighs, drum sticks, and the two wings. Alright, into the bowl it goes.
Black pepper, salt, paprika, dried herbs, white pepper, cayenne, and that gets tossed. all of the, believe it or not, 11 herbs and spices will be
on the site. Okay, after that's well tossed
with the spices and herbs, you're going to top it with buttermilk. And
we're gonna let that sit for 6 hours. You can get away with 4, you
can go overnight if you want. But I like 6 hours. Alright, then we're gonna make
some seasoned flour. Which is just flour, salt, some paprika, some cayenne, some garlic powder, some white pepper, and some onion powder. so give it a mix. After the buttermilk marinat-ion, the chicken pieces get dredged, oh my God, there's a fire truck
going by, hate when that happens. The chicken gets dredged
in that seasoned flour, well, there you want it really nicely
coated. Give it a little shake off, put on a plate, and we're ready to fry. And what we're going to do, and there's lots of different
ways to fry this, I'm gonna take a dutch oven, alright that's a big 8-quart
dutch oven, and I have about two-and-a-half
quarts of oil in there. And I'm gonna fry all 8 pieces at once.
Some people like to fry in a skillet, in just like an inch or so of oil, and then they do in batches, and
they turn it halfway through. You know, I don't have the patience,
I want it to all be done at the same time. Of course this uses twice the oil,
but you know what, how often do you fried chicken? Like once a year?
So 350, I'm gonna cook that for about 10 minutes, it's gonna develop
a nice crust, I'm gonna go in after 10 minutes, and just move it around
a little in case some pieces are stuck together; I want to cook evenly. That's going to go for about another
10 to 15 minute, so it's about 20 to 25 minutes total in the
hot oil to cook all the way through. Now while that's finishing up, I like to
take a rack, and put it on some paper towels on a sheet pan, and that's what I'm gonna use to
drain the cooked chicken on. Alright, so that's ready. and the chickens ready! Look at that.
Unbelievably beautiful. So again, that's been about
20 to 25 minutes total in the oil. I'm gonna fish it out with my spider,
that little strainer thing you see there, and what beautiful chicken! Impossibly crispy, amazingly delicious.
Don't bite into a for, about 10 minutes cause it's so hot, and you won't enjoy it.
You'll just burn yourself. So 10 minutes later, we have a delicious
plate or fried chicken, and I just could not bring myself to eat this in
front of you, but trust me, it was every bit as good as it looks.
That is not a hard recipe, it does take a little bit of work, but really worth it.
So, like I said, 11 herbs and spices, believe it or not, was what was
included in this, you can go to the site, count them
yourself, cause all the ingredients are listed there.
And as always, enjoy!
I hope he was using LARD.