The Perfect

Fried chicken

The most important tip is to buy the best chicken that you can. In Crackbird, we use the wings, thighs, drumsticks and breasts, and all have their own succulence.

At home, though, I’m happy to just use thighs. They’re my favourite piece of chicken, and easy to get in the supermarket — free range, skin on and bone in. If you’re really not into bones, you can use boneless.

If you’re going to take the time to fry chicken, you can’t skip the brining. During brining, the chicken absorbs some of the liquid, and so you end up with juicier flesh.

You can experiment with the liquid you use; buttermilk, beer, wine, leftover tea, or juice, and then trick it out with myriad flavours, such as herbs, spices, citrus, Asian cupboard staples, or standard aromatics such as onion, garlic and celery. It might sound like a faff, but it’s just a no-mess case of throwing it all in a Ziplock bag and leaving it.

The dredge is the crunchy bit on the outside of the chicken, and it’s worth getting the dredge right. We use a mix of flours and breadcrumbs to get craggy shards surrounding each piece of our buttermilk version. At home, I love a hotter-than-hell dredge, and will liberally add mustard powder, dried chilli powder and flakes, cracked black pepper or old-school ground white pepper. Create extra crunch with cornflakes. Once you dredge your chicken, stick it back in the fridge, in a single layer, to let everything dry out. Another Ziplock bag to the rescue here, too — less mess.

When it’s time to cook, don’t fry the chicken straight from the fridge. Ice-cold, chicken will cool the oil too much. Take the chicken out of the fridge half an hour before cooking it and use a cooking thermometer to get an accurate reading of the oil’s heat.