In this edition of Epicurious 101, professional chef and culinary instructor Frank Proto demonstrates how to make the best crispy fried chicken at home.
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00:00The crunch says everything.
00:04I'm Frank Proto, professional chef and culinary instructor,
00:07and today I'm gonna show you how to make fried chicken.
00:09With my method, you're gonna get crunchy,
00:11juicy, tender chicken that's never dry.
00:14This is fried chicken 101.
00:19This might be controversial,
00:21but I like to use boneless chicken thighs.
00:24The thigh has lots of flavor to it, has some fat to it,
00:28and it doesn't dry out that easy,
00:30and it gets nice and crisp when you fry it up.
00:32People might say, Chef Frank, why boneless?
00:35In order for it to get a nice, crispy crust
00:37and be cooked all the way through,
00:39I like to take the bones out.
00:40I'll bone them myself.
00:41If you like bone-in chicken, this recipe still works.
00:45You just need to cook it a little bit longer.
00:47Time to bone out my chicken thighs.
00:48This is a firm boning knife.
00:50What I like to do is get in there alongside the bones,
00:53open it up, pinch under the bone,
00:56run my knife through, save these for stock,
00:59don't throw them away, get any cartilage off,
01:01trim off any extra skin.
01:03I do want skin on there, but I don't want a lot of extra.
01:05Cut this in half,
01:06and I just think it's a better portion size.
01:09Now, some might argue,
01:10oh, that's just a nugget or a chicken finger,
01:12but chicken fingers and nuggets are not made with thighs
01:14with the skin on.
01:15This is not a nugget.
01:16This is not a chicken finger.
01:18I stand by my word.
01:19Okay, my chicken is prepped.
01:20Now it's time to make my brine.
01:22A brine is basically a salty solution
01:27that we're gonna marinate our chicken in.
01:28The brine is gonna tenderize.
01:30It's gonna add flavor.
01:31It's gonna add some saltiness and seasoning
01:33that's gonna allow our chicken to hold on to moisture.
01:36What I like to do is mix my brine in a bowl
01:38before I put it in my chicken
01:40to make sure all of my ingredients
01:41are distributed really well.
01:42And what I have here is some buttermilk.
01:44Now, buttermilk is a cultured milk.
01:47It has a lot of acidity.
01:48It's got some tanginess.
01:50I like to add hot sauce to my mixture as well.
01:52This is Louisiana hot sauce.
01:54I think it tastes great.
01:55You can use whatever hot sauce you have.
01:56Garlic powder.
01:57Now you might say,
01:58hey, Chef Frank, you're a fancy chef.
01:59Why are you using garlic powder?
02:01I really think garlic powder
02:02is a great convenience ingredient.
02:03In order to get the punch that this gives,
02:05I'd have to add a lot of fresh garlic.
02:07And I think garlic powder does the job.
02:09Some mustard powder.
02:10Mustard powder might be one of those ingredients
02:12that you're questioning.
02:13I think mustard has a great sharpness to it.
02:15It adds a little spice to this.
02:17This flavor that everyone's like,
02:19I know that flavor,
02:20but I'm not sure what you put in here.
02:21And then of course, salt.
02:23This is a brine,
02:24so we want a fair amount of salt.
02:26So once I have all these things in the bowl,
02:28just whisk it together.
02:30So it's combined really nice.
02:32Make sure everything melts.
02:33The salt melts in there.
02:35And we don't have any big lumps.
02:36Once it's combined,
02:37all of this can go right on top.
02:39Make sure the chicken is covered with brine.
02:41So if you have to make a little more,
02:42make a little more.
02:43Chicken, when you put it in a bowl,
02:45tends to stick to itself.
02:46So if you don't move it around,
02:48you're gonna have the outside
02:49of these two pieces of chicken brined
02:51and the center with no brine.
02:52So I like to just mix it up
02:54to make sure my chicken gets coated really, really well.
02:57The most important part of the brining process
02:59is to let it sit.
03:01I do at least 12 hours.
03:02Now, if you don't have 12 hours,
03:04that's fine.
03:05But if you wanna maximize that juiciness
03:07and tenderness of the chicken,
03:08you need at least 12 hours in the fridge.
03:11The chicken has been brining for 12 hours
03:15and now we're gonna drench.
03:16Basically, we're taking our wet chicken
03:18and coating it with dry flour.
03:20The whole point of doing this dredge
03:21is that the flour mixture is gonna coat our chicken,
03:24form a nice crispy crust to seal in the moisture
03:27to ensure a juicy fried chicken.
03:29First thing I wanna do is season my dredge.
03:31I'm gonna add about a couple tablespoons of salt here.
03:34If we don't add salt to the dredge,
03:36it's gonna be a little bland.
03:37And then I have some fresh cracked black pepper.
03:40I like using a whisk for dry ingredients.
03:43It distributes things really well.
03:45And then we can just take our chicken out of the brine
03:47and put it right into the dredge.
03:49That brine is kind of sticking, I want that.
03:51That's gonna help my flour stick to those pieces of chicken.
03:55So just drain it lightly, place them into the flour.
03:59Word of caution here,
04:00don't just start dumping a lot of chicken in here.
04:03I do two or three pieces at a time.
04:05If you add a lot of chicken at once,
04:07our flour gets really too clumpy
04:08and it gets really difficult to work with.
04:10A thousand pieces in there,
04:11I'm not gonna be able to coat it really well.
04:13Make sure that we get it into all the cracks and crevices,
04:16give it a light shake,
04:18and then we're gonna put it on the rack.
04:19I like to use a rack for this part
04:21because it allows the dredge
04:22to evenly absorb the moisture from the chicken.
04:25I try not to let them touch too much.
04:27So we're gonna let this first dredge of flour
04:30soak into the chicken.
04:32We wanna let this sit
04:33so that the dredge gets a little sticky and wet.
04:35And this is gonna ensure that our crust
04:36does not slide off the finished piece of chicken.
04:38If it's wet and sticky, don't worry,
04:40it's gonna be okay because I'm gonna do a second dredge
04:44before we fry,
04:45so that we get that really nice, thick, crispy crust.
04:47One important thing here
04:48is not to get rid of your flour at this point.
04:50The brine that fell in there
04:52kinda wet some of the flour
04:53and we got these nice little lumps.
04:55This is gonna be great when we do our second dredge
04:57because those lumps are gonna give us nice, crunchy pieces.
05:00So we have finished the first dredge of the chicken.
05:02We're gonna let it sit here for about 25 to 30 minutes,
05:04which gives us a lot of time to set up our fryer.
05:07We have our chicken that has absorbed
05:11all of that first dredge.
05:13We have our dredge and we have our hot oil.
05:16I chose to use a cast iron.
05:17Cast iron pans are really dense and retain heat.
05:21When you fry, sometimes when you add the chicken to the pan
05:24you get a dip in temperature
05:25and it makes your chicken greasy and soggy.
05:28The cast iron lets us hold onto that heat
05:30and maintain a nice, even temperature throughout frying.
05:33So I'm gonna take my chicken.
05:34You can see that it's nice and sticky.
05:36I'm gonna put it in for the second dredge.
05:38I'm gonna get those nice, big chunks, those nice, big bits.
05:41Give it a light shake, but don't shake it off too much
05:44because that flour is gonna be our crust.
05:45When we drop into the fryer, we drop away from us
05:48so that if it splashes, it splashes away from us.
05:51You can adjust your heat if you feel it's too high.
05:53I think I got a really nice heat right now
05:56and we're just gonna let it fry.
05:57Leave it alone.
05:58Once we start to see it getting brown on the bottom,
06:01we'll give it a flip.
06:02One of the most important things that you wanna watch for
06:04when you fry is bubbles.
06:07If you see bubbles, that means moisture is cooking out
06:10and it's sealing that chicken in, oil is not getting in.
06:13If you drop this into the pan and there's no bubbles,
06:17you're gonna have greasy chicken.
06:18So you wanna make sure that you always have some bubbles.
06:22All right, so it's been about four minutes
06:23and we're gonna flip it over so the other side can cook.
06:26I'm flipping away from it as well so I don't get splashed.
06:30This batch is ready to go.
06:32Drain it really well so we're not dripping everywhere.
06:36Right onto a rack.
06:37The reason I wanna put this on a rack
06:39is that it won't be sitting in its juices
06:41and it'll remain crispy.
06:42If you put this on a plate,
06:43the chicken's gonna steam from underneath
06:45and your chicken's gonna get soggy and we don't want that.
06:48So put it on a rack to rest, drain it really good,
06:51and then you fry your next batch.
06:53If I was to take this chicken and not do the second dredge,
06:57all the spots where it was wet would actually burn.
07:01So that second dredge is really important.
07:04Watch what's going on.
07:05I'm looking for a nice even brown color on the bottom
07:08before I give it the flip.
07:09So my chicken is done frying.
07:11Look at it.
07:12It's got that nice craggly crust on the outside.
07:14I know that it's juicy in the middle because I brined it.
07:17I just can't wait to get this on a plate and eat it.
07:22My fried chicken takes a little time,
07:24takes a little effort, takes a little bit of love,
07:26but look at it.
07:27It is gorgeous.
07:28Who would not want to have a piece of this fried chicken?
07:32Put it up to my microphone.
07:33Can you hear this?
07:34That is the sound of crispy chicken.
07:41That wasn't a big enough bite.
07:42Hold on.
07:46The crust is super crisp.
07:48The chicken on the inside is super juicy.
07:51The seasoning is all throughout the chicken
07:53because we let it brine for 12 hours.
07:55I think this is the perfect fried chicken.
07:56I know frying at home can be intimidating sometimes,
07:59but if you follow my method, you follow my technique,
08:01you're gonna have tender, juicy,
08:03and crispy fried chicken every single time.