Fried Chicken tutorials

Fried Chicken Recipes

Getting started with fried chicken

This page is about the basics of frying chicken and covers all you need to know to begin making good fried chicken at home without the disasters which have plagued us along the way.

There are only 2 main ingredients in fried chicken, the batter and of course the chicken. The batter we discuss on the batters page in most detail so let's consider the chicken and what you need to consider for that. Firstly you can't make bad chicken taste better by frying it in a batter but I guess a powerful spicy batter might hide a dreary chicken. So always buy the best chicken you can afford. Free range chickens are more flavoursome than battery reared hens. The next thing to do is chop the chicken into roughly equal sized pieces so that they cook evenly in the same time. Typically you would joint the legs into drumsticks and thighs and then cut the breast into 3 pieces, one small end with the wing and the remaining breast portion cut into 2. Some people like to then marinate or brine their chicken for a period of a few hours up to 2 or 3 days. Marinades add some flavour and can tenderise. A brine (salt dissolved in water - left to cool before adding the chicken) will add salt to the meat and remove excess moisture from the meat too which can increase the tenderness of the end result.

Once your chicken is chopped, and optionally marinated or brined dry it off with kitchen towel and prepare to cook!

One of the biggest problems cooking fried chicken at home is that you likely only have a conventional deep fat fryer whilst in the fast food restaurants they will have a pressure fryer. A pressure fryer fries the chicken under higher pressure so it cooks a lot quicker. Without a pressure fryer your batter will burn before the chicken is cooked which is real shame when you go to a lot of effort. So what can you do at home to get around this? The answer is to roast the chicken pieces so they are precooked or almost cooked. Remove from the oven and allow to cool until you can handle them then batter them and deep dry until the batter is the nice golden colour you desire and serve.

Alternatively you may want to invest in a pressure fryer but be prepared for a hefty investment!

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