How to Make Crispy Old-Fashioned Fried Chicken (Best Ever) | Julia at Home

I've worked in America's Test Kitchen for over 20 years, and when I describe what it's like to work there, I usually say it's like Candyland. There are beautiful pots and pans stacked to the ceilings, there's lots of people in white chef coats running around making all sorts of delicious food, and there's always a platter of fried chicken somewhere in the building. I don't know what it is about fried chicken, but someone's always doing some testing on it, and I have eaten a lot of fried chicken over the years, but the fried chicken I'm making today is my absolute favorite because it is a very thin, crisp crust, and best of all, you can make it a day ahead and reheat it, and it's almost like it just came out of the hot oil, so it's very convenient if you're having a party. Now for the chicken, it's time to make that all-important batter, because this is batter fried chicken. That means the chicken just gets one dunk in the batter before it goes into the hot oil, so the texture of that batter really matters, and we're going to use equal parts all-purpose flour and cornstarch. That's how you get a thick batter that's also crunchy after it's fried. So we're going to add a cup of flour, going to add a cup of cornstarch, now we're going to add a bunch of seasonings to this, starting with a lot of black pepper. Now I love black pepper, I like it a little on the spicy side. Now if you're serving this to a crowd, no shame in dialing back on the black pepper just so it's a little more crowd-friendly, but today I'm making this for me, so all the black pepper is going in, and that's five teaspoons, and I just freshly ground this myself this morning. Next we're going to add some baking powder, kind of unusual for fried chicken, but not for a batter. That baking powder will add lift, but also help the chicken brown. All right, so we're going to add two teaspoons of baking powder, now we're going to add a little salt, a teaspoon of table salt, some paprika, which is for flavor but mostly for color, teaspoon of paprika, and just a little more heat, again you can alter this to suit your mood, but we're going to add some cayenne, half a teaspoon of cayenne. This is part of why this fried chicken tastes so good, because the batter has serious flavor. All right, I'm going to whisk these dry ingredients together, now we're going to add the water, we're going to add cold water, just a one and three quarters of a cup. That's the smell of fried chicken batter right there, oh that's a good smell. Notice I'm also using a ridiculously large bowl, that's because the batter makes a mess, and I like having the extra splatter room. All right, that's it for the batter, I'm going to set this aside while we focus on the chicken, and we're going to brine the chicken in a salt and sugar solution, because that makes the chicken taste good, also it makes the chicken stay moist as it cooks. So here I have a quart of water, to this we're going to add a quarter cup of sugar. Now sugar, not necessary in a brine, does help with browning and it does add a little flavor. I really don't like adding sugars to brine except for the fried chicken because I love that slightly sweet flavor. So that was a quarter cup of sugar and now a quarter cup of table salt. You can be a little rough with the measurements here. All right, right so you want to whisk this all together to make sure it dissolves. All right I think that's good. Now I'm going to set this aside and let's get to the main ingredient here, the chicken. So what you want is four pounds of bone-in chicken, and that's about a chicken and a half, so it's three breasts, three drumsticks, and three thighs. Now for the breasts, you want to cut them in half so that they're the same size and they'll cook at the same rate as the drumsticks and the thighs, but I don't really cut them exactly in half. I almost do two-thirds on the thin side and about one-third on the thick side. That way they weigh about the same. All right so into the brine the chicken goes, and we're going to brine these just for half an hour to an hour. You don't want to under brine it because they won't get seasoned, but if it goes much longer than an hour it'll get much too salty, so you really want to time it pretty carefully. All right so the chicken's in the brine. I'm going to clean everything up, wash my hands. I'm going to put the brine chicken and the batter in the refrigerator. Now we're refrigerating the batter because it'll help thicken up so the chicken is nicely coated before we get frying. All right so the chicken is out of the brine and the batter is ready to go. Now notice I put the chicken on a nice layer of paper toweling, that's just to help it drain. Also going to pat it thoroughly dry on top. You want to get it as dry as possible before getting it into that batter. That way the batter will stick better. The batter will stick better. Say that 10 times fast. All right so that looks good. Here's that batter that's been refrigerated. I'm going to give it a little whisk. Looks good. All right we're going to fry the chicken in two batches. So I'm going to take out the chicken, and I like doing all the breasts in one batch and all the dark meat in the other because you cook them to different temperatures. The white meat you cook to 160, dark meat you cook to 175. So just makes things a bit easier. All right so there's all the breast meat. Oh coating it in batter. Oh this is going to taste good. All right this chicken is nicely coated with batter, time to fry. And here I have a nice big pot filled with three quarts of peanut oil. You could also use vegetable oil but I love the flavor of peanut oil when frying. Notice I'm using a really large dutch oven. That just gives you a lot of headroom for any bubbling so it's a bit safer. And I have a handy thermometer because we're going to start the oil at 350 degrees but after you add the chicken that oil temperature will drop to between 300 and 325 which is perfect. So in goes the first piece. Oh happy trails little chicken. All right two more left. You're gonna be tasty. All right last one. Oh you gorgeous piece of chicken you. Best for last right buddy? All right into the oil. This chicken's been frying for about 15 minutes. I mean just take a look at this. Hello. My goodness doesn't that look good? Super crisp crust. All right again we're looking for an internal temperature of about 160 because this is the white meat. All right 160 we're good to go. Now I'm going to take these out of the oil and put them on a wire rack set in a rimmed baking sheet. Oh beautiful. I love that sort of dark almost heading towards mahogany color on the chicken because I just like that browning flavor. Now I'm going to keep these warm in a 200 degree oven while I fry the second batch. This second batch has been cooking for about 15 minutes and it is as gorgeous as the first batch. Now again this is the dark meat so we're looking for an internal temperature of 175. Perfect. All right I'm going to turn the heat off. My mouth is watering just taking the chicken out of the pot. Oh right there you know that little like wing ding right on top that little fried bit that's my piece right there. It's a little extra crunch. Into the oven this goes. That's just a low oven about 200 degrees. Now let's get the chicken out of the oven. Oh goodness. Oh look at that chicken. I call that beauty chicken right there. Oh you can hear how crisp that batter is. And again when you make this a day ahead and you refrigerate it and you put it in a warm oven to reheat it gets this crisp again which makes it my go-to make-ahead fried chicken. Oh that dark color are you kidding me? Hold on. Excuse me. Having a minute. This is so good. Oh perfect crunch. The chicken has flavor because of the brine and there's a little bit heat in the back of my throat because I used all the black pepper. The perfect fried chicken dinner. I hope you give it a try. See you next time. Thanks for watching. What'd you think? Leave a comment below and let me know what you're excited to cook this week. And while you're at it hit that subscribe button. You can get today's recipes and more for free at our website americastestkitchen.com slash juliettehome.