Greedy Girl : Epic spatchcock fried chicken

Brunch knows best

I have reached another level of fried chicken greatness. As you all know, if you have been following me for a while, fried chicken is not my thing. I always make it, and it tastes good, but to me there is always room to grow. Today I went up 5 more levels. This fried chicken was an absolute 8.99 out of 10. And I say 8.99 only because I burnt it.... a bit.

Fried chicken is the brunch meat. Especially served with waffles and maple syrup. The idea I had for this recipe was to make a fried chicken board like a cheese board. You can chop up the whole chicken spread on the board, have sauces, jams, chutneys and waffles on the side. Maybe even some celery, cucumbers and over veggies. Would make for a delicious and pretty presentation.

When I made the garlic confit last week for the breakfast pizza, the oil was beyond amazing. I got me thinking why on earth don’t I make this type of flavored oil to cook everything. I knew for sure a fried chicken in this oil would be super flavorful and delicious. I added everything I had in the kitchen to the oil and simmered it at a low temp for 45 minutes. The curry leaves and garlic and onion had the most amazing smell its almost as if you could drink the oil.

And now let’s talk about the breading. There are so many options when it comes to fried chicken,; batter, seltzer water, twice dipped, single dipped, rice flour, you name it. I have come to like just a simple single dip in a mix of flour and corn starch. Within the last year or so, I have slowly but surely eliminated the dipping in an egg mixture before frying. I am just not sure it’s a beneficial use of my eggs anymore. I have tried dipping in water and flouring twice, which worked just as well. But really when it boils down to it, I jut want to keep it simple fast and basic. So for me, at this juncture in my life, my fried chicken is getting dipped in the flour mixture once and that’s it. I let it rest and sit there so the flour and the skin really ‘become one’. When you bite into the chicken you can’t tell the difference between breading and skin. Its like the skin is just one crispy layer and its thin and not heavy.

Kind of nice to know there is an option to frying the chicken whole if you don’t want to cut it up. I can’t wait to dry this recipe with cut up chicken. Will be much easier to control the temp and I can deep fry the pieces and not have to deal with flipping. I had a warm time controlling the temp, my stove is extremely powerful, and it went from 0 to 100 real quick. I added the chicken and my constant 350/60 temp dropped to 315 and in my impatience, I turned the flames up to get it to 350 and it would just not move. So I left the heat on high and in a millisecond without me realizing I was frying the chicken at 420 instead of 350 (hahahahaha) I was shook. I turned down the heat but by the time I flipped the chicken the damage was done. Delicious all the same. Do not get tempted to turn up the flames like I did. Get the oil to 350/60 keep it constant, add the chicken in and leave it, the oil will eventually get back to 350. I’m thinking if you get the oil to 380 and add the chicken the temp will drop to 350 and then that just might work too.

Ingredients (printable recipe)

To season chicken

1 whole chicken

1 ½ teaspoon Salt

1 tablespoon Sugar

1 tablespoon Onion powder

1 teaspoon Garlic powder

1 tablespoon Smoked paprika

1 teaspoon Cayenne pepper

1 tablespoon Ground allspice

½ teaspoon black pepper

To bread the chicken

1 cup Flour

1 cup Cornstarch

2 tablespoon Onion powder

½ teaspoon Black pepper

½ teaspoon Salt

1 tablespoon smoked paprika

To fry chicken

Grape seed, peanut or sunflower oil

15-20 Curry leaves

3 tablespoon Ginger sliced

1 whole Garlic bulb

1 Onion

1 tablespoon Allspice

2 stalks Scallion

1 hot pepper

4 sprig thyme

Sauce

½ cup Ketchup

2 tablespoon Vinegar

¼ cup Maple syrup

Onions (from the oil)

Ginger (from the oil)

Garlic (from the oil)

¼ cup water

Instructions

To season the chicken

Combine all the seasoning to make a rub
Turn the chicken breast side down with the legs facing you
Using a kitchen scissors, cut the chicken down the backbone, you can remove the back bone or just cut it in half (I don’t remove it)
Open the chicken out with the legs away from you and make a slit with a sharp knife in the white cartilage above the chest bone
Apply pressure to the two side and allow the chest bone to pop out and pull it out
Season the chicken with the dry rub inside and out and under the skin
Place in the refrigerator to marinate overnight

To prepare the oil

Remove the chicken from the refrigerator and allow it to rest and warm up a bit, so it’s not ice cold when its being cooked
Add enough oil to the pot so that when the chicken goes in it won’t overflow
Get the oil to a constant temperature of 200 degrees f
Slice the onion in half and the whole bulb of ginger in half
Add to the oil the curry leaves, ginger, garlic, onion, allspice, scallion, hot pepper and thyme
Allow the herbs to simmer in the oil for 30 to 45 minutes
After 45 minutes, remove all the herbs from the oil completely
Bring the oil to a constant 350 temp

To fry the chicken

Combine the flour, cornstarch, onion powder, smoked paprika, salt, black pepper
Dredge the chicken completely in the seasoned flour mixture
Set aside on a wire rack to rest for 10 minutes so that the coating of flour adheres to the skin
Place in the oil skin side down and fry for 15 to 20 minutes
Flip in the other side and fry for another 15 to 20 minutes
Try as much as possible to maintain a constant 350 temp, avoid heat spikes to prevent burning on the skin.
Remove from the oil and place on a wire rack to rest for 5 to 10 minutes before slicing
Slice and serve

For the sauce

For the sauce I used the soft onions, garlic and the ginger from the infused oil
Combine all the ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth
Strain into a saucepan and bring to boil once boiling remove from the heat
Serve with the chicken

Watch this video of me spatchcocking or butterflying Cornish hens, same technique applies to chicken, its just bigger. In the video I remove the backbone of the cornish hen, but honestly that's a total waste of chicken. I don't remove the backbones anymore (unless I want to make homemade stock) I just cut along one side of them or if the scissors are very sharp it can cut right down the middle. Spatchcoking starts 20 seconds in to the vid.