The Best Crispy Fried Chicken In Town!

There is nothing more satisfying than taking a bite into freshly deep-fried crunchy, crispy and flavourful chicken when you are having a very bad day, or a highly stressed up day, or a simple day when you just have to have a very bad craving for junk food. It’s not very difficult to satisfy this craving – just grab your phone and make a call. There are plenty of food outlets in Singapore that sell and will deliver deep-fried chicken packages to your doorstep – Kentucky Fried Chicken, NeNe Chicken, Korean Fried Chicken, Four Fingers etc. Most Singaporeans would likely have already tried at least one, if not all the chicken from these local chains already!

It is definitely less of a hassle to order in when you are craving for deep-fried chicken, as making them at home requires superbly much effort, not just in terms of preparation, but also in terms of the mess that has to be cleaned up after the cooking and the oil spills. It’s just too tiring, and this amount of effort on top of the usual cooking that I have to do – it’s crazy. I can’t possibly ask the little one to eat just this for his meal too. He’ll whine aloud!

Which is why my attempt here at making the American version of deep-fried chicken this time would be my first and last – well, it would have to be another year or so before I start to think about making it all by myself again. This recipe that I got from an online video is really quite good and had the steps clearly spelt out so it helped a lot. Having an in-house expert also matters a lot, especially one who knew all about oil temperature control.

So, till then deep-fried chicken. It was yummy having you around!

Ingredients:

Cider vinegar: 1/3 cup
Buttermilk: 1 cup
Cayenne pepper: 3 tbsp
Onion powder: 4 tbsp
Garlic powder: 3 tbsp
Salt: 1 tbsp + 1 tsp
Ground blackpepper: 2 tbsp
Chicken (breast meat, drumstick, chicken wing etc): 10 pieces
Canola oil: 1 bottle, for deep-frying
All-purpose flour: 500g
Paprika: 1 tbsp
Egg: 2
White pepper: 1 tsp
Water: 1/2 cup

Method:

Mix together cider vinegar, buttermilk, 2 tbsp cayenne pepper, 2 tbsp onion powder, 2 tbsp garlic powder, 1 tbsp salt and 1 tbsp blackpepper. Pour mixture over chicken and leave to marinate overnight.
Drain marinate sauce from chicken. Leave chicken to air-dry in fridge for 1 hr.
Heat oil in pot.
Mix together flour, 2 tbsp onion powder, 1 tbsp garlic powder, 1 tbsp cayenne pepper, paprika, 1 tsp salt and 1 tbsp blackpepper.
Coat chicken pieces evenly with flour mixture.
In a separate bowl, whisk together egg, white pepper, 1 tsp salt and water.
Dip chicken pieces into egg mixture, and then coat again with flour mixture.
Deep-fry chicken in oil for 15 min until golden brown, turning over mid-way. Make sure the temperature of the oil is between 150 – 180 degrees Celsius and no lower.
Place chicken pieces on paper towel to drain the oil before serving.

Tricks:

All thanks to the guy, he actually helped to make sure this batch of chicken didn’t go to waste by increasing the temperature of the oil to above 150 degrees Celsius. Deep-frying the chicken below this temperature will only result in soggy chicken that refuses to turn golden brown regardless of how long they spend in the hot oil!
Putting new pieces of chicken into the oil to fry will lower the temperature of the oil, so make sure that you increase the temperature of the oil when you do so each time to prevent the oil temperature from dipping too much.

Disclaimer: