Gourmet Fried Chicken, the Next Big Foodie Favorite

As with so many food trends, the fried-chicken fad originated in New York. So prolific are the fried-chicken offerings in Manhattan that the website seriouseats.com claims it’s “popping up on more high-end menus than (is) pork belly.”

The site even rated the best fried chicken in the city’s chef-driven restaurants, awarding The Redhead top prize for a $17 fried chicken plate that has, “just the right amount of crunch,” is “tender and juicy,” “perfectly cooked all the way to the bone,” “well-seasoned inside and out,” and served with “fine accompaniments, worthy of stomach space.”

Second place went to Momofuku Noodle Bar, where red-hot chef David Chang is serving two whole fried chickens, one southern style and one Korean style, with mu shu pancakes, bibb lettuce and four sauces. Don’t tell me you’re not salivating.

But you don’t have to go to New York for your fried-chicken fix. A few Montreal restaurants are giving it a go as well.

At Kitchenette on René Lévesque Blvd., chef Nick Hodge has a buttermilk battered chicken po’ boy on his lunch menu that’s filled with tender chunks of crisp chicken and served with homemade coleslaw and sweet-potato croquettes.

Restaurant fried chicken is always a treat, but there’s no reason you can’t enjoy a heaping platter at home. Problem is, there are so many techniques to choose from.

At the famous Dooky Chase restaurant in New Orleans, the recipe for classic Southern-style fried chicken calls for the chicken to be bathed in egg wash before being shaken in seasoned flour.

Nigella Lawson’s fried chicken recipe begins with a buttermilk bath in which the chicken is eventually poached before it’s flash-fried in a flour coating.

And in Paul Prudhomme’s Louisiana Kitchen cookbook, the fried chicken begins with a spice rub followed by a shake in seasoned flour without any liquid soaking in between.

My favorite recipe thus far comes from food52.com, a brilliant new website that has members submitting recipes in competition for a place in an eventual Food 52 cookbook.

The winning fried-chicken recipe, Classic Southern Buttermilk Bathed Fried Chicken by a certain Chef James, features an initial spice rub, a buttermilk and hot-sauce brine, and a seasoned flour coating. The resulting chicken I lifted out of my fryer was not only light and crisp, but the crust and flesh had real depth of flavor.

Having made a fair share of fried chicken over the past few weeks, there’s no denying that buttermilk/and or brine makes for a more tender piece of chicken (“buttermilk is a must” says Hodge), generous seasonings are also essential (but watch the salt!), and my best results have been peanut oil for frying, though both Hodge and Thomas Keller recommend canola oil as well.

Fried chicken is simple to make, and there’s always room to experiment with different seasonings. But the one rule that must be respected concerns frying temperatures. Ideally, you’ll want the oil to hover around 330 degrees F (165C). Rise above 340 F (170F) and you risk over-browning the coating, resulting in undercooked meat and a bitter crust. Chicken fried below 300 F (150C) will be greasy.

Of course, it goes without saying that fried chicken is a highly-calorific indulgence (when I served fried chicken to my French husband he wouldn’t touch it). But for some of us, there is nothing like crunching down on a piece of hot fried chicken served for supper, or savoring a piece of cold fried chicken straight from the refrigerator the morning after.