chicken

Sticky Barbecue Crack Chicken

chicken, comfort food, dinner

As you can probably guess, January ‘new year, new me’ isn’t happening. I’m already awesome, I only plan to get awesome-er. Definitely a word. The best way for me to do this is by continuing to make absolutely-not-healthy-at-all food like this affectionately named American concoction, Crack Chicken. Crack chicken seems to take many forms, some people cook it in a slow cooker with ranch dressing and bacon, some people bake it whole smothered in barbecue sauce, but this is my version, deep-fried in breadcrumbs, smothered in sauce and baked in the oven until sticky, juicy and a bit crispy. If, like me, you’re 110% over January, I’d suggest you join me in making this for your tea tonight.

Ingredients

  • About 4-6 chicken breasts(depending on how hungry you are/how many people you want to not share this with) cut into thin strips
  • Roughly 200g plain flour, just enough to coat the strips
  • 3 eggs
  • 50ml milk
  • 250g breadcrumbs, any is fine, panko is preferred

For the sauce

  • 300ml Barbecue sauce (you favourite, or mine)
  • 100g muscavado sugar
  • juice of 3 limes
  • lots of cracked black pepper
  • teaspoon of smoked chopped garlic (this is the best, but you can go with unsmoked)
  • a few drops of Tabasco (if you’re feeling daring)
  • finely chopped parsley
  • 25ml vinegar

Also be sure to have a pan of vegetable oil ready for your frying, heat about 1 litre of oil on a medium/high heat until you can fry a cube of bread golden in about 30 seconds. This should take about 10 minutes

Let’s get cracking! First of all, preheat your oven to 180C. Get all of your sauce ingredients into a saucepan and let them simmer together on a low heat until the sugar has dissolved. In 3 separate bowls, have your flour, milks and eggs and breadcrumbs(known to us chefs as a pané mix) and coat you chicken in each in that order until they’re fully crumbed. Next, place your chicken pieces carefully into your hot oil and fry until golden. Take your sauce off the heat and once the chicken is ready, stick it all in the saucepan. Give it all a mix around so the chicken is fully covered and transfer the whole lot onto a baking tray with greaseproof paper, spacing them out a bit so they don’t stick together. Bake for about 15 mins, remove from the oven, check they’re cooked and then bung them all in your mouth!

Easy!

Buttermilk Fried Chicken

chicken, dinner

This fried chicken recipe is the absolute best. My boyfriend’s favourite ‘cheat day’ meal. It’s a simple dinner to put together, gorgeous with a celeriac and apple coleslaw (post to follow) and some baked sweet potatoes. Now i get that marinating the chicken sounds like a drag, but once you’ve done it and you’ve got it in the fridge ready, the flour will start doing beautiful things to that chicken, really injecting the flavours into the drumsticks. The use of the buttermilk as opposed to normal milk just gives you a wonderfully crispy outside and more depth of flavour. Trust me on this, you need to buttermilk.

Ingredients.

  • a pack of chicken drumsticks (6/7 is about right)
  • 400g plain flour
  • 4 tsp dried thyme
  • 3 tsp salt
  • 3 tsp pepper
  • 2 tsp sweet smoked paprika
  • 1 carton of buttermilk
  • a deep fat fryer or a deep pan filled with vegetable oil.

First of all, in a large bowl, thoroughly mix the flour, herbs and seasonings. Then add your chicken and give it a really good coating of the flour. Cover the whole bowl and leave in the fridge for at least an hour. The longer you leave it, the better it’ll taste. Next up, preheat your fryer or oil to 190C, and preheat your oven to 170C. You will need a thermometer if you don’t have a fryer, it’s just to make sure you don’t burn the chicken before you’ve cooked it! Next take your chicken out of the fridge and get your buttermilk in a separate bowl. Carefully place the drumsticks into the buttermilk, give them a good dip and return them back to the flour for a final coating. When you’ve made sure they’re all fully floured, carefully place them in the hot oil, moving them around so you don’t catch the coating on the basket or bottom of the pan. After a few seconds of moving the chicken around, set a timer for 7 minutes. This is the perfect amount of time to give you that golden, crispy skin. When all of the drumsticks have been fried, transfer them onto a greaseproof-paper covered baking tray. Cook them for a further 30 minutes on the middle shelf in a fan oven (180C for a gas oven). The additional cooking in the oven will not only ensure the chicken is fully cooked, it’ll make it seriously juicy and luscious inside. This goes really well with the homemade mayonnaise….just saying!