The chicken below was brined in Keller's herb-lemon brine (brining appears to be one of those things restaurants do often, but home cooks neglect) for 8 hours, then dripped in flour, buttermilk and then flour again before being dropped into canola oil at 325 degrees. I had a mild temperature disaster when I realized my pan was too small, and had to transfer frying chicken into a larger pot (it's like transporting a living organ) but a quick adjustment of heat saved the day. The resulting chicken was crunchy and extremely flavorful - just a delight.
Still, I think I need an instant read thermometer for frying, candy, etc. Flying by the seat of my pants leaves too much to chance.
EDIT: As delightful as it was, I'm reminded by looking at the picture that the fleur de sel I added on top was overkill, given my generous salting of the batter. As I've heard before, if you can taste salt rather than the enhanced flavor of the food, you've gone too far.
2 comments:
I had Korean fried chicken for the first time a few weeks ago, courtesy of a CLE that ticked me off. It's startling how different the preparation is from U.S. fried chicken...and yet delicious as heck.
Brining happens for restaurants more because they have a set menu, so inherently there's a lot of forethought. If you decide what you want to make for dinner tonight around 3pm in the afternoon, brining isn't much of an option. The only common brining for home cooks seems to be for the Thanksgiving turkey, which is also part of a meal that's typically the product of forethought.
I did my first non-turkey brining this weekend, making pork buns from roughly the Momofuku recipe. It was shockingly easy once all the ingredients were purchased (a trip to Chelsea Market for pork belly and to Chinatown for steam buns):
overnight brine of the pork belly in salt, sugar and water;
roast it in chicken broth for several hours, covered, to cook the pork, then uncover for a little while at a higher temperature to get the fat golden brown;
cool it in the fridge to make it easy to dice up the pork belly;
and then reheat for 15 min. to serve, while you steam the buns for 3 min. each, that were $3 for a dozen in Chinatown so you would be crazy to bother making your own.
I think I am going to compile a list of recipes that require no judgment from the cook because it's all done in the oven and the time periods stated in the recipe work with a temperature-accurate oven. (So far, pork buns and snickerdoodles.) On a stovetop, how do you know the canola oil is 325 degrees?
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