Happy 4th of July!
I hope everyone is having a great day !
In honor of this All American Holiday, I have decided this is the perfect day to share my recipe for Fried Chicken. I perfected this recipe sometime ago and always use it when I make fried chicken for the past several years. My family loves it. This recipe can be made with any type of chicken. I mainly make it with chicken strips, breasts , or cut up as popcorn chicken like in the pictures. But it is also great for cup up whole chicken fryers, or wings. This recipe cuts back on the mess by using a ziplock bag to coat the chicken. If you like it spicy, add your favorite seasonings to the flour and the egg mixture if you like. The secret is in the baking powder. It adds tenderness to the crispy outside that really makes this fried chicken totally legit!
Mom's Bags of Tricks Fried Chicken
Popcorn chicken edition
Serves 4
1 pound chicken breasts
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
2 tbsp seasoning -I use italian seasoning or dry ranch powder
1 egg
1 cup prepared ranch dressing (I make my own Hidden Valley Ranch)
1/4 cup milk
pinch of salt and pepper
2 ziplock gallon bags
tongs
4 cups canola oil
candy thermometer
meat thermometer
In a deep pan, add the candy thermometer to the inside, not touching the bottom and heat oil to just above 350 degrees. I find that when it is at exactly 350, the temperature drops very fast. Heating it to just above, allows for not such a drastic drop in temperature right away. While the oil is heating, place chicken, with a sprinkling of water into a ziplock bag and pound lightly. Remove chicken and cut into small 1 inch pieces. Pounding the chicken prior to cutting gives it a more authentic pop corn chicken shape. If you dont pound it, the chicken holds its shape pretty well and looks more like chunks and less like the popcorn variety.
Take the second ziplock bag and add the flour, baking powder, salt pepper, and seasonings. Close the bag and shake to incorporate all of the ingredients.
Coat all of the chicken in the bag by throwing pieces in, one at a time, using tongs to help you place chicken and remove it from the bag.
Next, in a bowl, add ranch dressing, egg, and milk and whisk together.
Add coated chicken to the egg mixture one at a time with the tongs and coat on both sides.
Add the chicken back to the flour mixture and coat again using the tongs.
Flour, ranch, flour, fry
Place chicken in a single layer on a plate while the oil heats.
This method keeps my hands from getting messy. The clean up on this dish really is minimal. I throw the ziplocks away, wash my hands and in a few minutes, I'm ready to fry chicken!
Just above 350 degrees is perfect.
I added the chicken and as you can see...
The oil only dropped slightly
Fry the chicken util golden brown and 165 degrees in the center
Once the oil is hot, start frying the chicken in batches. For popcorn chicken, I can usually do it all in 2 batches. Each batch takes about 5-7 minutes plus the time it takes for the oil to reheat back up to right above 350 degrees. Place cooked chicken on a paper towel lined plate and sprinkle with kosher salt. Although my Grandmother used paper bags. This works too.
Speaking of my Grandmother and fried chicken...
She made the best fried chicken I ever tasted and my mother doesn't have the recipe. I only had her chicken a few times in my life, but that was enough to resonate in me as the best fried chicken in the world. I had to come up with a way to have delicious fried chicken that could somehow possibly be close to as good as hers, so after a long time of perfecting this recipe, I hope she can look down upon me and approve! She always made me chicken strips. Which I think sparked my lifelong love of chicken strips and the will to perfect this recipe.
A Lot of the times, I do make chicken strips. They are equally delicious as popcorn chicken.
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