AAFC Andrew’s Aussie Fried Chicken
Overview
We all have come across the American Southern Style Chicken clone, and believe me I have done some testing on this front. Not an easy task but there are a couple of key steps to getting close. If you’re looking for all 11 secret herbs and spices belonging to that other recipe, you wont find it here. I do get some pretty good tastes though, but you can judge for yourself.
Time
Around 45 minutes. 10 min preparation.
Ingredients
Chicken – thigh, deboned x 8. Enough for 2 each / 4 pieces each for a family of 4. You can use wings, drumettes, legs, tenderloins or anything else you like but I find for ease of consumption (no bones!) and tastiness, thigh fillets are best.
300mL buttermilk or 300mL normal milk and 1/2 a fresh squeezed lemon.
Coating (shhhh the secret bit!)
500g plain flour
1 tbsp mustard powder
1 tbsp salt
2 tbsp fine white pepper, ground
1 tbsp celery salt
1 tbsp sweet paprika
1 tbsp onion powder
1 tbsp garlic powder
1 tbsp herb and garlic mix (thyme, garlic salt, marjoram, oregano, basil, rosemary)
1 tsp MSG
1.5L Cooking oil. Recommend peanut oil, but sunflower or vegetable oil is OK – anything with a high smoke point >200°C.
Equipment
Deep fryer, conventional oven for “keeping warm”. Turn on oven to 100°C.
Method
1 – Heat oil
Heat start heating the oil in your fryer – you should try to get this to around 180°C
2 – Cut chicken
These should be reasonably bite sized portions. Around 1 thigh sliced in 2 works. If you get some bigger thighs, cut into 3.
Other cuts of chicken can be used as mentioned above, but with no bones in these and bite sized portions, why would you go anywhere else?
3 – Place chicken into bowl and add buttermilk.
Many people don’t have buttermilk to hand. A quick alternative is using lemon and normal milk. Low fat milk doesn’t have the same effect, but again, will still do.
Make sure you let this sit for 15 minutes or so, stirring occasionally. You can place covered in the fridge also if you’re preparing ahead of time.
4 – Prepare secret chicken coating
This is where the magic happens.
This is still a work in progress as the flavours can vary. I encourage you to play with the amounts and even add things. If you want a kick, add some chilli powder or cayenne to the mix – the more, the spicier.
Add the coating ingredients all together in a bowl and whisk until evenly distributed. True homogeneity cannot be achieved, but get close…
5 – Take chicken and drop into secret chicken coating
Make sure that the chicken when it comes out is completely covered in the secret coating.
At this point you can either put straight into your hot oil, or leave to rest for a further 15 minutes. The resting part apparently makes the secret chicken coating stick a little better to the meat, but it still comes out pretty good if you don’t!
6 – Batch cook chicken for 8 minutes per batch.
Make sure that when cooking the chicken, you don’t cook for any less than 8 minutes. At 180°C this will cook the chicken properly without drying it out. If you have thicker chicken cuts, an extra minute or two will not hurt.
You should see the chicken turn a golden colour. You will know when it is ready. (but minimum 8 minutes!)
7 – Remove chicken and put in preheated oven awaiting further batches.
Once cooked, there will likely be further batches to be made. Generally you can cook 5-7 pieces per batch, so with 8 thighs, 16-18 pieces, you can be done in 3 batches.
8 – Serve
Make sure you serve the chicken together and enjoy.
We have found that a little Frank’s Red Hot Buffalo Wing Sauce goes a long way for that little extra kick… I put that on everything!
And don’t forget the salad!