Yummy buttermilk fried chicken!

I’ve always said that Spit and Roast buttermilk fried chicken is, quite possibly, the best fried chicken I’ve ever had in the UK.  Alan and I had a street food phase were we went to venues where various purveyors of gorgeous street food congregated and indulged our epicurean tendencies.

It was a stroke of luck that I bought a copy of the Sunday Guardian when I did all those years ago, because they shared their recipe for their fried chicken.  It certainly felt like I won the lottery!  This recipe is inspired by Spit and Roast’s recipe for buttermilk fried chicken.

Ingredients

For the marinade:

• 8 – 12 pcs chicken thighs, deboned but with skin on
• 1 tbsp salt
• 1 tbsp ground black pepper
• 2 heaping tsp paprika (I like to use the sweet variety and not the smoked one)
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 2 287ml cups of buttermilk (in a pinch you can use Elmlee, use the single cream variety as it has more buttermilk content

For the dredge:

• 1 heaping tbsp salt
• 1 tbsp ground black pepper
• 2 heaping tsp paprika
• 200g plain flour
• 200g cornflour

The original Spit and Roast recipe calls for thigh and drumstick pieces. But I’ve found that using deboned thigh pieces makes for easier eating. I also keep the skin on because friend chicken skin is oh-so-delicious and the coating makes it so deliciously crispy! So anyway, here we go

Directions

1. Debone your thigh pieces (you can use skinless, deboned thigh fillets but it makes for slightly drier fried chicken).
2. In a ziplock bag combine the buttermilk, salt, black pepper, paprika, onion powder and garlic powder. Make sure everything is mixed well. I use the ziplock bag because it’s so much easier to massage the chicken pieces through the plastic. But, of course, you can always use a bowl that has a lid. Marinade the chicken for at least 4 hours but overnight always produces best results.
3. When you’re ready to cook.the chicken, take the chicken out of the fridge. In a large bowl, combine all the dredge ingredients, making sure everything is well-incorporated.
4. Dredge each chicken piece individually, making sure that when dredging you scoop flour onto each piece and they feel dry to the touch. Shake off the excess flour.
5. Fried chicken is always best deep fried, but if you don’t have a deep-fat fryer or don’t want to deep fry your chicken, you can always shallow fry the chicken in a deep wok or a big frying pan. Fill the pan with 1 1/2 inch of oil. Spit and Roast suggest oil temperature of 150°C but if you don’t have a heat probe, you can test the heat with a piece of bread. If the piece of bread crackles in the oil, then it’s hot enough.
6. Make sure you lay the chicken away from you when putting it in the oil (Safety first!). Fry the chicken for 10 to 12 minutes, turning 2 to 3 times to make sure everything is evenly and nicely browned.

If you’re frying a lot of chicken pieces, you can put the chicken pieces on kitchen paper in a pan so the excess oil is absorbed and put it in an oven preheated to 100°C to keep them warm and the s

kin crispy.

I serve my fried chicken with gravy, coleslaw and cornbread. Enjoy!