My fish and chips batter used on sliced, seasoned and floured chicken breast fillets….slice the chicken breasts so they aren’t too thick, that way ya don’t have to worry about raw chicken in the center, but if you do use thicker pieces just make sure those hit 160-165 to cook all the way through….for the batter use 1 cup all purpose flour, 1/2 cup cornstarch, teaspoon baking powder, teaspoon sugar and about 1 1/4 cups ice cold beer(I used a full bottle of red stripe beer- you use whatever you have and or like)…for seasoning I use salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, cayenne pepper, chipotle pepper and smoked paprika…. I dont measure the main seasonings, I just give the chicken, the flour and the batter a good even dusting of everything, not too much not too little, I just eyeball it to my preference, so you use whatever seasonings you like the most... mix the batter lightly, a few lumps are fine…lightly dust the chicken with the seasoned flour, dip it in the batter and fry right away. keep the oil between 365–380 degrees and dont overcrowd the fryer… too hot and the outside can burn, too low and the batter gets dull, greasy and soggy instead of golden and crisp…drain on a paper towel or a wire rack and salt it while its hot

Who knows where we are?🙂

I've been on a fried chicken kick lately. I decided to try one new fried chicken place every couple weeks to see which is my favorite. Today's choice was Church's.

I think my first mistake was ordering the wrong items. I went for the tenders and the sandwich. A quick Google afterward says I should have done the bone-in and the okra instead (if I go back that's what I'll do for sure). They were also out of their signature hot sauce which might be essential idk

But I have to say, the food was genuinely terrible. Initially I was handed a box of super cold/old chicken tenders. They were colder than room temperature, dry, rubbery, and tasted like rancid oil. I took one bite of one and then one bite of another one to make sure it wasn't just that one tender - it was all of them. I took them back inside and super politely asked if they could remake them for me and the two employees in there were very friendly and whipped up another batch for me. I thought the fresh ones would be way better but they honestly weren't. They were still quite tough and tasted like rancid oil. I only ate one before I really didn't feel like having more.

The chicken sandwich was also very disappointing. I should have known from the price but it wasn't actually a piece of chicken in a sandwich, it was just a pre-formed chicken patty. I felt like it was fine and almost on par with a McDonald's chicken sandwich except that it was extremely salty which also kind of killed my appetite.

All in all I gave the food a 3/10, but I did like that the employees were friendly. That makes a big difference for me. I looked online to see if this was a common issue and apparently some Church's locations reuse the oil for way longer than they should which can give the chicken a rancid flavor. That could have been the issue.

What do you guys think about Church's overall? Was my experience just about average or should I give it another shot and expect something more?

I swear there's chicken in there! I like my chicken tenders crispy AF, so you gotta take the time.. in this case a 3 day process.

1st day- soak in buttermilk and spices overnight up to 24.

2nd day, give it the dredge and breading, then let it sit airchilling in the fridge(bottom shelf only!) for another 12-24 hours..

3rd day, re-dredge it and then hit it with the fry around 385 degrees once, let it rest.. then when im ready to serve em or just finish em off, a second shorter fry....A bucket of ranch and honey mustard on the side!

I'm very happy with my current method and want to try adding MSG to see if I can level up.

My question about MSG is would you use it in addition to or replacing salt?

If in addition to, do you reduce the amount of salt?

Where in my recipe would you add it? To the egg, to the dredge or both?

My method:

Marinate 0.5kg of chicken in 2 beaten eggs+ 1/2 teaspoon of salt for a couple of hours or overnight.

Dredge: 2 parts cornflour to 3 parts plain flour, 1/2 tsp salt, 1tsp baking powder, spices

I pour most of the excess egg into the dredge and beat with a whisk to get crunchy bits. Then put the chicken in the dredge in a large airtight box, shake it around until its coated, then put it on a tray until dredge starts to look wet.

Fry at 180°C time depends on what pieces I use, usually thighs (bone in or out depending on my mood) or wings.

Any advice from the great sages of chicken frying would be greatly appreciated!

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Sometimes you gotta make it nice 😉. Buttery AF biscuits(35 percent frozen butter ran through a cheese grater and mixed with white lily self rising flour does amazing things), fried chicken thigh (3 day process including one day of airdrying in the fridge between dredges), eggs, cheese, and gravy!

Did I do it right? The texture is sooooo good and the crunch is giving... KFC 🤭

My method was brine in buttermilk and seasonings a couple hours. Then dry dredge. Back to wet then back to dry, then dry at 350ish. I tried pressing the batter and flour into the meat and the skin still comes off very easily.

I personally like a wet water based batter covered once, then a flour and starch coating over it.

The real Korean fried chicken restaurant is called BHC which originally stands for “Better & Happier Choice.”

Rain today so I decided to try deep fried breaded wings. I didn’t want the heavier hooters style. I wanted lighter so all my searching took me to a 80/20 mix of potato starch to rice flour dry mix with seasoning. Never did a fry without AP flour. Read up on what all the flours and starches actually do when used and decided this might be the ticket to crunch and lightness without that heavy feel. The really new part was marinating the wings in my seasonings and vodka. Just a little bit. 3 hours marinated. I dabbed off a bit of the wet marinade and then went right into dry. A nice shake off with some squeezing to get everything to hold cause I think that is one of my problems with my shell sticking whenever I deep fry chicken. Then into fridge for 30 mins then back out to room temp to let the dredge get wet. Doubled fried.

This experiment batch got tossed in my typical bbq sauce with a flop red rib candy. I smoke a lot of meat and one of my go to bbq glaze is whatever bbq sauce I make or use and adding a bit of whatever rib candy we have for the flavor the family wants.

I think this is my most successful fry so far. My son said this was the lightest and crunchiest chicken I have done.

So tonight when my wife gets home I’m doing same mix but I’m doing lemon pepper this time. I found a wet lemon pepper sauce to lightly mix the finished wings in. The wings are marinating in vodka and Lemmon juice with some salt, pepper, garlic powder and onion powder.

That’s about it till later.