- Hey, friends, it's Shawn with iwashyoudry.com
and today, we are going to make some glorious
crispy fried chicken
and we are going to take it to the ultimate test.
I am going to deep fry the chicken
and because I know a lot of you are going to ask,
I'm also going to air fry it
and we're going to do it at the same time
so we're going to see which one comes out better
and I think I know which one I'm going to enjoy better
but I'm going to save that till the end
so you have to wait and see.
All right, let's go ahead and make this chicken.
All right, guys, so last night I went ahead
and got my chicken marinating and that's important
because the marinating will create that tender,
juicy chicken on the inside.
So that's the first step we're going to do.
So last night, I went ahead and whisked up one large egg
and I added in one and a half cups of buttermilk
and then three tablespoons of your favorite
cayenne pepper based hot sauce.
Now, that's optional but I highly recommend it.
It doesn't make it spicy.
It just adds a lot of great flavor.
We're also adding in one tablespoon of salt
and that salt is very important
because salt likes to tenderize meat.
Now, put it in, put all your chicken pieces in there
and then go ahead and get 'em all covered.
You can also do this in a plastic bag
and just make sure you rotate the chicken pieces
at least once during that time.
Now, we are going to take our chicken,
just make sure it's all nice and coated.
Nice and tender here already.
Now we're going to push that aside and let that sit there.
We are going to start with our breading
and what is going to make our breading extra crispy
is a few things.
So first, we're going to start off
with about two and three quarter cup of all-purpose flour
and I'm just going to use a nice large shallow pan or dish here
and then we're going to use one cup of cornstarch.
Now, cornstarch is great
because it gives it that nice light and crispy coating
so you definitely don't want to skip that.
Now, to give it that signature kind of KFC flavor,
we're using 11 herbs and spices.
I know it looks like a lot but trust me, it's worth it.
So the first one we're going to do
is two tablespoons of black pepper.
We're going to use another tablespoon of salt,
one tablespoon of garlic powder, two teaspoons of paprika
and I'm using sweet paprika, not the smoked kind,
two teaspoons of onion powder, two teaspoons of dried thyme,
two teaspoons of dried oregano,
one teaspoon of mustard powder,
three quarter teaspoons of celery salt,
three quarter teaspoons of ginger powder
as well as just a half a teaspoon of cayenne pepper
and again, you could reduce this if you'd like
if you don't want it as spicy.
I'm telling you it's not that spicy
but it adds just the perfect amount of flavor.
Okay, so we're going to whisk this all together.
All right, to give it that amazing crispy, crunchy breading,
what you're going to want to do is take about four tablespoons
or a quarter cup of the chicken marinade
and we're just going to drizzle that in to our coating,
our bread coating and this is going to create little pockets
of crunchy bits that fry up
and give that chicken a nice extra crispy crunch.
So now I'm going to go in with clean fingers
and I'm just going to get all these little bits
coated with the flour
and it's going to create that extra crispy crunch
like I was talking about.
Okay, we're going to go ahead and add the oil to our fryer
and get it nice and started or get it nice and hot
and we're going to add, we're going to set it to 350 degrees.
Now, if you don't have a deep fryer,
you can use a heavy bottom pot or pan
and use an oil thermometer to keep track of the temperature.
It's very important to make sure your oil is at 350 degrees
because if not, if it's too low,
you're going to oversaturate the breading with oil
and it's going to be greasy and just kind of unappetizing.
If it's too hot, you're going to end up burning the coating
and having raw chicken on the inside.
So it's very crucial
and that's why I like having one that has a dial on it
that just automatically sets it to that temperature
and keeps it there for me
but like I said, get an oil thermometer
and I have a link to that in the blog post
in case you wanted to get one.
It's like $10, really easy and affordable.
Okay, we're going to go ahead
and dredge our chicken into our breading
and you're going to want to make sure
you drip off as much of that marinade as possible.
If you get too much liquid
stuck between the chicken and the coating
then you could end up having your coating fall off
and that's no fun.
So we're going to roll it around here
and I'm going to just add a little bit of light pressure
to get it nice and coated
and make sure it gets some of those craggily bits
and I'm going to do about three or four pieces.
I might even just do all of 'em right now
and then put 'em on this foil lined baking sheet
while my fryer heats up and my air fryer heats up.
(calm music)
That's good.
All right.
Okay.
I'm going to go ahead and get cleaned up just a little bit here
and then we will get to frying.
Okay, I've got my air fryer heating up, my oil heating up
and we are going to put this fried chicken to the test.
Let's add some chicken to the air fryer.
So I've preheated my air fryer to 375 degrees.
We're going to go ahead and add, I'll do one of each, right,
so I'm going to do a drumstick, we'll do a thigh and a wing
and just like the oil fryer,
you want to make sure you give these room.
The air is going to circulate around them
and create that crust.
Okay.
Also, I'm going to go ahead
and hit these with just a little bit of cooking spray.
I'm going to go ahead and air fry the chicken
for about 12 minutes and then we will flip them over
and check 'em and go from there.
All right, so I'm going to go ahead
and add in a drumstick here to my hot oil.
It should sizzle right as it lands
and remember, don't touch it for about two minutes.
Give it its time.
Adding a thigh here.
And then I'll do a wing as well.
We'll get one of each going
Beautiful.
I'm so excited.
Okay, we're at about three minutes right now
and it's already looking pretty dang good.
Okay, so you could see the air fryer chicken.
It is browning nicely.
So I'm going to just flip 'em over.
That was about 14 minutes.
I got a little distracted.
Flip it over.
I'm going to give it another little spritz on the back side
with some cooking spray.
Okay.
And we're going to put it back in
for about another probably 10 minutes.
Ooh boy, those are looking mighty fine.
Let's check the temperature one more time.
We're about eight minutes right now.
She ready.
All right.
Let's go ahead and put our chicken from the fryer.
Oh, that is nice and crispy.
Check out that.
Wow, gorgeous.
Now, let's go ahead and check out the air fryer.
So it's been in, flipped for about five minutes now.
Check that out.
All right, this chicken is already looking pretty good
but it's not quite cooked through yet
so I'm just going to pop it back into the air fryer
for a few more minutes and then I'm going to go ahead
and pop the already fried chicken pieces
into a 180 degree oven
to keep them warm until the rest are ready.
All right, guys, air fryer chicken is done.
This actually, this is surprising me
'cause I did not think it was going to look this good.
Let me grab the other chicken out of the oven.
So here we go.
It's pretty dang crispy looking.
Might have, we have some flour on there still
which is one of the things that with deep frying,
you'll get that off but wow, okay.
That thigh looks pretty dang good.
All right.
Side by side comparison.
Okay, so I'm noticing right off the bat here
that a lot of the air fried chicken
you can see under here is leaking some juices
which is creating a less crisp crust whereas,
or the crust seems to want to fall off here
on the air fried stuff.
Deep fried, we're still nice and strong crispy.
I'm not seeing any juices underneath it.
Here's the wing looking good.
This fried chicken is looking mighty fine.
Let's go ahead and get it plated and give it a try,
shall we?
Here we have our fried chicken which is ultra crispy,
perfectly golden brown and cooked to perfection.
Looks fantastic.
And then we also have our air fryer chicken
which it looks okay.
It's not terrible.
I'm going to try it and I think it would be good to let,
yeah, I'm going to go ahead and try,
let's try the air fryer chicken first.
So I'll try the drumstick here.
Like I said, it does seem a little
like you could see it's a little soggy
but there are some crispy spots so.
Mm.
It's good.
Mm.
It is nice and tender on the inside.
Can you guys see that?
It's tender and juicy which is exactly what you want.
Okay, let's go ahead and try the fried version.
Whoa.
Wow, that is so good.
You can see the skin is so crispy.
Mm.
That's delicious.
The flavor on this chicken is out of this world, you guys.
You have to try this.
So good.
The chicken is so juicy.
Love it, love it, love it.
So what's my final verdict?
I'm definitely going to have to go with the deep fried chicken.
It just has that extra crispy crunch
that I think you're really looking for
when you talk about fried chicken.
Now, that being said,
the air fried chicken is also really good.
I would make that for my family
and I think my family would enjoy it.
So if I didn't want to pull out the deep fryer
or heat up oil and all that and you have an air fryer,
I would definitely recommend that
and those instructions are in my blog post as well.
Go ahead and check out the full recipe
for this crispy fried chicken on my site, iwashyoudry.com
as well as a ton more awesome recipes just like this one
and I will see you guys next time.
Bye.