Crispy Chicken

It’s yet another weekend and I will be sharing an all-time favorite recipe of mine: Crispy Chicken. Nothing beats that first bite you get from a piece of juicy, well prepared crispy chicken and I will be showing you how you can make that perfect crispy chicken right in your homes.

In making crispy chicken, I have decided to break down the steps into 4 in order to simplify the whole process. These steps are:

·         Brining

·         Marinating

·         Coating

·         Deep frying

Brining

Brining helps improve the taste of the chicken and also makes it super juicy!  To brine, you would need:

Half a cup of salt

Half a cup of sugar

Lemon

Chopped Onion

Pepper corn (uziza seeds)

Bay leaves

In a pot of water, throw in the salt and sugar. Squeeze in the lemon juice and throw what is left of the lemon into the pot. Throw in the chopped onion. Blend the pepper corn with a spice blender (or grind with a mortar and pistil) and add to the mixture. Add the bay leaves and heat up mixture on a burner. Do not allow mixture to boil. Allow the mixture to cool and drop in you chicken. Place the brining chicken in a fridge and allow to brine for between 2-5hrs.

 

Marinating

Marinating allows all your seasoning and aromatics really sink into your chicken. For your marinate, you need:

Garlic and Ginger

Mustard

Soy/Oyster Sauce

Seasoning

Take out your Chicken from the brine and place in a bowl. Add the chopped garlic and ginger, mustard, oyster sauce and seasoning. Mix everything up and place in a fridge for it to marinate for about 2hrs.

 

 

 

Coating

To coat your chicken, you would need:

Flour

Paprika

Dry pepper

Seasoning

Eggs

Mix the flour, paprika, dry pepper and seasoning in a bowl. In a separate bowl, break in some eggs.

Dip the marinated chicken in the egg wash and coat with the flour mixture. Repeat the process (so chicken gets really crispy). Place chicken on a tray and allow to stand for a while.

Deep Fry

Heat up some vegetable oil till it gets super-hot and drop chicken in piece by piece. Reduce flame and allow frying on medium heat.

Allow to fry till it gets golden brown. Take out chicken and place in a bowl containing  paper towels.