This is one of my all time favourites to do, home made take away! Crunchy Fried Chicken, Coleslaw and Chips. It’s a big job, and the larger the family, the more chicken required, but its well worth it.
Mise en place, prepare everything before you start cooking!
Make your coleslaw in advance, and keep it refrigerated. Add the dressing just prior to serving as it will go soggy.
As you will need oil for deep frying the chicken, it makes it rather difficult to fry chips and chicken, so oven baking chips is the simple solution or why ot just pop some rice in your rice cooker?
CHICKEN:
Using chicken breast, cut tenderloins. Try to cut even thickness but not too thick as it will take longer to cook and have the added risk of it being under cooked. I don’t like using boned chicken for this reason. You can’t over fill the fryer when cooking the chicken so don’t cut the chicken to small either. This creates a lot of extra fiddly work.
I like to marinate my chicken in Sriracha hot chilli sauce. The added flavour is sensational but I find it looses some of its heat once cooked.
BATTER:
1/2 cup self raising flour
1/2 cup corn flour
salt and pepper
enough water to combine and make a thick batter
FLOUR:
The flour is a bit of guess work, mine changes each time I make it depending of what is available on the spice shelf. But to give you an idea, and not limited to:
Use a pasta plate, full sized dinner plate with sides like a bowl add
1 cup flour (plain or self raising flour), sprinkle, spoon or pinch herbs and spice flavours on to the flour, mix well, wet your finger and taste. Yes, you can taste it to get a feel for the flavours, you may want more salt or particular spices. Add:
- chicken stock powder
- salt and pepper
- oregano or mixed herbs
- sweet/hot paprika and / or chilli powder
- curry powder or turmeric
- all purpose seasoning
- poultry spice
- garlic powder
- mustard powder
We’re looking for a good mix of herbs and spices to make that crispy, crunchy coating super tasty!
This will destroy your oil. Be prepared to discard it once you’ve finished cooking the chicken as there will be a lot of settlement of flour at the bottom once cooled.
Heat oil. I like to use a wok at home which I store the oil in an old coffee tin and wash the wok after every use to ensure cleanliness and don’t get the big build up of oil which is hard to clean.
Once the oil is hot, working closely to the oil, dip one chicken piece in the batter. Allow to drain excess before placing in the flour. Using the sides of your palms (by the little fingers) roll the chicken around on the spot, in the flour to coat. The batter will move with the rolling and start to look messy but still hold to the chicken and be coated in flour. This is exactly what you want!
Quickly pick up the chicken from one end and gently place it in the oil. Working fast, aim to get a few pieces in the oil at the ‘same time’ for even cooking. Control the heat of the oil to be hot, but not burning the coating and failing to cook the chicken. I can usually cook 4 pieces of chicken in the wok at once to not over crowd it.
Once cooked, place on a wire rack to drain the excess oil from the chicken and allow air circulation to assist with crispness. I have in the past, stored the chicken in the oven to keep hot and assist further cooking if the chicken was thick or had bones. This is practical but does make the crunchy coating go soft.
And repeat until all the chicken is cooked!
If by any chance you have leftover cooked chicken from dinner, it goes very well cold in a sandwich or wrap with lettuce, mayo and cheese for lunch or as a simple school snack.
I hope I’ve explained the steps well enough for you to follow, if I’ve missed something or you want to know more, please drop me a comment and let me know how you go with this one! You may never need to buy it again! Share it with your friends!