Recipe #10
Fried Chicken
Thomas Keller Teaches Cooking Techniques II: Meats, Stocks, and Sauces
Chapter 05
After a week of being laid up in bed from a particularly nasty virus, I’m finally back to food!
I cooked Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc fried chicken right before falling ill. I started with a whole chicken, breaking it down myself. I’m used to butchering poultry: I used to raise chickens, turkeys, geese, and ducks from eggs and butcher them when they were full grown. But a whole roast was the common way I made each one, so actually breaking them down into 10 pieces was something nearly new to me.
It did not go as smoothly as in the video. I could not get the breast bone to break properly, so I ended up digging around it, partly with the scissors and partly with my fingers. The ribs kept breaking without releasing. One of the thighs ended up a bit mangled. But despite taking 4 times the amount of time Thomas Keller did, the end product didn’t look too bad.
Once broken down, all of the pieces went into the brine I prepared a few hours before and had chilling in my fridge (after learning last time I made a Thomas Keller whole chicken, the brine takes FOREVER to chill after brought to boil.)
I brined for 12 hours, taking heed to not pass the 12 hours like he warned. I weighed out each spice and ingredient and sent the chicken through. For some reason, my chicken was much meatier than his, even though I tried to stay in the same weight range. My chicken breasts and thighs were easily double the size of his, so I ended up frying for much longer, only able to fit about 4 pieces of chicken in at a time.
I did my very best to keep the oil at temp. However, in trying to always keep it right, the cast iron got a bit too hot on the bottom and I ended up with some dark spots on the fried pieces. Luckily, it was mostly a cosmetic error, as the dark spots didn’t really taste burnt.
I never had fried chicken with brined meat before. It was a completely different experience! The meat was so juicy and moist while the skin was so crispy and audibly crunched with every bite. While I love fried chicken, the part I never liked about fast food fried chicken such as KFC, Bonjangles, or PopEyes, is how bone dry the chicken breasts are. I try to only eat the drumsticks because the white meat just whisks the moisture out of your mouth. Not so with Thomas Keller’s chicken. In fact, I think the chicken breast was my favorite part because it was so flavorful and juicy. That’s certainly a first!
I’m excited to play with this recipe, trying my own spice blends and playing with ratios. I plan to make fried chicken about once a month throughout this year until I can get it exactly the way I want it. With how delicious this attempt was, I can’t wait to see what I can turn it into for my own personal tastes!
Highlights: That perfect crunch. Every time I’ve fried anything, the batter was either too thin and didn’t give enough of a crunch or it was too thick and would peel away in the oil, leaving patches. This chicken stayed perfectly covered, no patches, and a very satisfying crunch with each bite. The juicy, flavorful meat from the brining was absolutely heaven. Will I ever cook chicken again without brining it first?
Recipe Grade: A
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