07/21/11 • SMOKIN’ FRIED CHICKEN
From the June/July, 2011 Fine Cooking (click here to view the recipe)
One of my favorite food memories from childhood was when my mother would cook up a batch of her amazing fried chicken. Back then, with a fulltime job and three kids to feed, she’d maximize her efforts by frying enough chicken parts to last the week — something which typically meant her having to stand at the stove for hours on end, and our having to eat a seemingly endless supply of fried thighs and drumsticks. Not that anyone was complaining. Still, nothing could match biting into that first, freshly fried piece of chicken meat just hours out of the skillet.
Despite the almost Proustian pull fried chicken still holds for me today, when it came to making it myself I never gave the matter much thought — too messy and smelly for a New York City apartment I figured. And then there were all the things we now know about a diet heavy on fried foods. Still, when I came across this recipe for tea-crusted fried chicken breasts in the latest issue of Fine Cooking I was intrigued. For one thing it calls for boneless, white meat chicken, which despite its tendency to dry out when cooked, has the potential to be a real crowd-pleaser if done well. And I loved that the recipe features a surprise ingredient — two tablespoons of crumbled lapsang souchong tea (my go-to beverage for wet winter days), a muscular, tobacco-like tea from China that the magazine promised would imbue the chicken with a hearty, smoky flavor. That, plus the addition of some quick pickled vegetables (achieved with the help of some Chinese rice vinegar, another personal favorite) called up images for me of a classic, Southern-style meal. Count me in.
Given my most recent, near-disastrous experience with frying (see my po’boy posting of July 8th in which I almost burned the house down), my first step was to pick up a reliable candy thermometer that would stay secured to my frying pan and that would supply an accurate reading as the cooking oil began to heat up. Once this was in place I added the oil, turned on the burner, and held my breath — happily, no clouds of smoke emerged from the pan, nor did the fire alarm go off, and I was able to proceed with the recipe without incident. In fact, except for the messy splattering that is an unavoidable part of cooking with hot oil, the whole process was relatively hassle free. Since I cook like this so rarely, however, I was momentarily flummoxed by what to do with the oil once the chicken was done (my first impulse to pour it down the drain was clearly not the way to go). The simplest solution: once it cools, pour the oil into an empty plastic container, ideally with the help of a funnel as pouring from pan to bottle can be tricky (duh).
More importantly, however, the finished results couldn’t have been better. The cooking process had turned the breasts a beautiful golden brown while also sealing in those all-important juices, and the breading ingredients offered a wonderful counterpoint to the mild flavor of the meat. That said, if the smoky flavor of lapsang souchong is not your thing (a friend recently compared it to the taste of a well-aged scotch) feel free to eliminate it. Even without this component the recipe will still stand as something special. In fact, going forward I plan to use the basic approach and ingredients presented here — with and without the tea — as my fried chicken standard (sorry, Mom).
As for the pickled vegetables, these too were a hit. I’m a big fan of pickled anything, but have never tried doing this myself — in part because I always imagined it a laborious, time-consuming process. It’s something I plan to explore further in the months ahead, but if the recipe presented here is any indication, it’s actually quite easy, involving little more than a quick sauté (the shallot and crushed coriander seeds), bringing the remaining ingredients to a boil (carrots, green beans, sugar, and the previously sautéed items), then adding six tablespoons of rice vinegar and letting the whole mixture sit off the heat while you proceed with the rest of the menu. A half hour or so later I had a medley of bright, crunchy vegetables with just the right acidic kick to act as a foil for the richness of the chicken.
A few quick notes about the ingredients: there are actually two varieties of rice vinegar (or rice wine vinegar, as it’s sometimes called) — seasoned and unseasoned. Seasoned is typically used in Asian style salad dressings as well as sushi rice, and is slightly sweeter than the unseasoned version, as it has added sugar, salt, and sake in the mix. Unseasoned is typically used in stir-fry dishes as well as when pickling, and is the variety you’ll want to use here (it’s also the choice for most traditional Asian chefs, for whatever that’s worth).
Lastly, although the recipe calls for four small chicken breast halves weighing 1½ lbs, I was only able to find three breast halves totaling that amount. Although this worked better for serving three people than the promised four, it made no discernible difference in the cooking time or quality of the finished dish.
Ingredients:
—3 cups plus 1 tbs canola oil
—2 large shallots, thinly sliced (about 1 cup)
—1 tbs very coarsely ground coriander seeds
—1/4 cup granulated sugar
—Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
—3/4 lb green beans, trimmed
—1/2 lb carrots, peeled and cut in 1/2-inch thick rounds (about 3 medium)
—6 tbs unseasoned rice vinegar
—2 tsp lapsang soughong tea leaves, crumbled
—4 small boneless, skinless chicken breast halves (1½ lbs)
—3/4 cup all-purpose flour
—3/4 cup buttermilk
Directions:
—Heat 1 tbs of the oil in a 3-quart saucepan over medium heat. Add the shallots and 2 tsp of the coriander seeds and cook until the shallot is softened and the coriander is lightly browned, about 2 minutes. Add 4 cups water, the sugar, 3 tbs salt, and 1/2 tsp pepper and bring to a boil. Add the green beans and carrots and cook until just beginning to soften, about 4 minutes. Remove from the heat, add the vinegar, and set aside.
—Meanwhile, mix the remaining 1 tsp coriander seeds, the tea, 1 tsp salt, and 1/2 tsp pepper. Sprinkle the chicken breasts all over with the tea mixture and press to adhere. Put the flour in a shallow dish and the buttermilk in another. Dredge the breasts in the flour, the buttermilk, and then the flour again.
—Attach a candy thermometer to a 12-inch skillet. Heat the remaining 3 cups oil in the skillet over medium-high heat to 335˚. Fry the chicken on both sides, flipping once, until deep golden-brown and just cooked through, 8 to 12 minutes total. Transfer to a wire rack to drain briefly. Sprinkle with a pinch of salt. Strain the pickled carrots, green beans, and shallots and serve with the fried chicken.
Serves 4
