Youngblood's Fried Chicken Secret Recipe

UPDATE 2023:

Larry Bell provided me with this information on Leslie's Fried Chicken, a precursor of the article below.

Leslie's Fried Chicken from Larry Bell

My friend, Paul Galvani's book on Lost Restaurants of Houston came out in May 2018.

He interviewed family members and writes about Youngblood's, beginning on page 171 of his book, and provides an updated recipe based on those interviews. It's a much simpler recipe than the one indicated further on in this piece.

Youngblood's Fried Chicken Batter
1/4 cup salt
1 cup milk
1 cup buttermilk

Flour

Dissolve salt in the milks. Dip chicken in the milks, then in the flour.

Amazon - Lost Restaurants of Houston by Paul Galvani


The people working for Youngblood's Fried Chicken back in the day went on to create their own, now famous, fried chicken franchises. Here is some information that I found on the web that needs to be preserved for future generations.

Kay Potts advised:
   
"Ok, people, here it is: 

This is the recipe for Leslie’s Fried Chicken, my mom and dad worked for both and they both used the same recipe

Have a bowl with flour, we have seasoned it a bit with white pepper and a bit of salt, to taste.

Dip your chicken pieces in the flour and then dip in the following mixture and back into the flour.

1 Cup powdered whey (Baking type- sweet powdered whey)

This is not readily available in grocery stores, we found in online at 
http://www.berryfarms.com

3/4 cup powdered non/fat dry milk

1/4 cup salt (was a little salty- I might reduce this slightly next time)Try using just half of this or less, depending on how much you put in the flour.

2/3 cup water (I had to guess on the amount of water)

This mixture needs to be thin, the combination gives it the batter texture.

Dust chicken in flour, then into wet mix, then back into flour, shake off excess, cook in oil at 350 degrees for 12 minutes.

Evidently the whey is what gives it the flavor. We have also used buttermilk powder in place of the dry milk and whey and it comes pretty close! This works best in a deep fryer, rather than pan frying.

The crust is amazing, holds up well a couple of days in the fridge."

• This is kind of interesting. I was going deep in the internet and came across a forum that was discussing Youngblood's > Leslie's > Church's Fried Chicken recipes. Both the Leslie's and Church's chains came out of Youngblood's. Here, supposedly is the secret recipe in industrial portions.
• "You are not going to believe the original proportions. They used 7 lbs. salt, 2 lbs. whey, 1 lb dry milk. I asked him how they could use so much salt and have it taste good. He said it was mixed in a lot of water in proportion to the salt but that it still tasted very salty. Later they reduced the salt but he didn't know exactly how much. He said to add salt to taste which he said would be somewhere around 2 cups whey, 1 cup dry milk, and 1/4 cup of salt. It still tasted too salty to me and their measurements were by weight not by volume. So the only consistent thing we have is the 2 lbs whey and 1 lb dry milk, then salt to taste. This is all for the liquid part. I asked him if they seasoned the flour at all and he said they did not while he was with Youngblood's. When he moved to Denver and started the Drumstick chicken restaurants they did season the flour some but I don't know with what yet.

  He said when he makes fried chicken at home he puts white pepper and salt in the flour, then mixes 1 egg and 1 Tbsp. water for the wet mix. He dips the chicken in the flour, shakes off excess, dips it into the egg/water mix, and back into the flour, shakes off excess, then into 350 oil. 

  The other thing I want to try is to find cottonseed oil. They used it at Youngblood's and Leslie's because it was the cheapest and he said it lasted longer than the other oils. He said it didn't make any difference in taste but I can tell a difference between peanut oil, vegetable oil, and Crisco. So I wonder if the cottonseed added anything to the flavor. Another thought I had was that he was at Youngblood's in the 50s. I would imagine the recipe changed with time so they may have been seasoning things more in the 60s. I know Leslie's started using buttermilk in their wet mix. 

  
  

  

  
  

  Lots of fried chicken to experiment with! It may take us all but at least we have some direction. I really like the taste of the sweet whey in the mix. It added a flavor that is very nice."

  John Dupree Comments:

  California State University, Fullerton

  "Interesting. You call this Church's Fried Chicken, but you follow none of the recipe of the real thing. Not saying yours is bad chicken, but it just ain't Church's. I used to manage for them like 30+ years ago, and the first thing you have to do is marinate the chicken. The commercial recipe was 30 gallons of water, 25 lbs. of salt, and a 1-lb. "flavor packet," a euphemism for pure MSG. It marinates for 22 hours. We then cut the chickens up and panned the pieces. Coldness is the key! Chicken must be cold, and the batter must be ice cold! If the batter or chicken isn't cold, coating will fall off during cooking, and the shortening burns the chicken. Dredge the pieces in flour, dunk them in the cold batter (a very thin, watery mix I never learned the ingredients of), and dredge the chicken in flour again, and into the vegetable shortening, 340 degrees for 13 1/2 minutes."

Moulton - 2022

 

Recipes - A Collection of Recipes of Interest From Around the Internet

Serious Eats - A crunchy buttermilk batter with spicy honey

Serious Eats Honey and Spice

Kenji Lopez-Alt

Kenji's Recipe

Fried Chicken Middle Eastern Style
Middle Eastern Soices Style Fried Chicken Recipe

Jonathon Waxman : Cornmeal, Egg and Buttermilk
Jonathon Waxman Recipe

Gordon Ramsey Pickle Celery Recipe and Buttermilk Batter Fried Chicken Recipe:
Gordon Ramsey Pickled Celery and Buttermilk Batter Fried Chicken

Fried Chicken Recipe from the 18th Century: A vinegar (verjus) and lemon marinade (tart):
Fried Chicken in the 18th Century

Koji Fried Chicken Recipe from Cook's Science:
Koji Fried Chicken (from Cook's Science)

From Ashton Vaughn (from a Diane Unger recipe): Special Note. I tried this. I was intrigued by the fact that Unger mentions that batter fried recipes were common during the era of The Civil War. I found this crust to be chewy and gummy. It held a lot of oil. I did not enjoy it. Not recommended.

Batter Fried Chicken Recipe (Originally Cook's Country)


From Chef Jerod (lots and lots of spices in the marinade)

Chef Jerod


Cooking and Conversation

Buttermilk Fried Chicken - Cooking and Conversation


Gordon Ramsey - Another Time

Gordon Ramsey - Part Two

Fried Chicken - The Kenji Lopez-Alt Method (From his YouTube Channel)

 If you aren't following Kenji Lopez-Alt and Joshua Weissman on YouTube, you should be.

The Kenji Fried Chicken Method

Frenchy's Fried Chicken Houston - Brittany Britto Garley Reports for Eater Houston

 Here is a link to the original article in Eater Houston.

Eater Houston - Frenchy's

Brittany Britto Garley is researching fried chicken in all it colors here in Houston. We can look forward to more great articles on fried chicken from her in the near future! Here follows the most recent article.

Houston’s Iconic Fried Chicken Chain Frenchy’s to Open New Dream Location This Spring

Decades in the making, the new location will include a double drive-thru, a front porch entrance, and a sidewalk cafe

Brittany Britto GarleyMar 28, 2022, 9:07am CDT

Frenchy’s will open a new location in Third Ward.

Frenchy’snone

Owners of Houston’s iconic fried chicken chain Frenchy’s Chicken have been planning for a new location for decades, and this spring, they’ll finally open the restaurant they’ve always dreamed of.

King Creuzot, who took the helm of Frenchy’s enterprise in 1989, said the new location at 3602 Scott Street, will be everything his father and Frenchy’s founder Percy “Frenchy” Creuzot imagined come its opening in late April or early May.

“When my dad started Frenchy’s, it was his desire to introduce New Orleans-style, Creole food to Houston” in a quick-serve format, says King Creuzot, 73, but despite its huge success, “it was his opinion that we owed our customers in Houston a new experience and a new restaurant,” Creuzot says. Long after Percy Creuzot’s death from stroke in 2010, his wife and son King Creuzot have kept the dream alive.

Like Frenchy’s original Third Ward mainstay, the newest location will be tucked between other major Houston institutions like Texas Southern University — Houston’s historically Black college, the historic Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church, Jack Yates High School, and the University of Houston’s football stadium.

Frenchy’s newest outpost will also feature ample parking, multiple cash registers, an outdoor walk-up window for orders, and a double drive-thru, which is expected to decrease the traffic the locations are known to generate, says architect Paul C. Heisler. The restaurant will also aim to be pedestrian-friendly, with a sidewalk cafe, an outdoor patio with umbrella tables, and a covered front porch patio, similar to the original restaurant’s design.

“The whole concept is geared toward the customer,” says architect Paul C. Heisler, who is designing the latest Frenchy’s. “The customer has been so patient with Frenchy’s — with its long lines and traffic. We’re developing something here that caters to the ease of access and the ease of service.”

Heisler also went a step further to play off of Creuzot’s New Orleans family roots, with Bourbon Street-esque balconies and arches in its entryway that play off of Paris’ Arc de Triomphe, which has served as a starting place for parades and celebrations in the city for generations.

“Just the design of the restaurant will make you think you’re in New Orleans in the French Quarter,” Creuzot says. “It’s more than a quick-serve fried chicken restaurant. That is what we do, but the experience in this new restaurant will be something different for our customers.”

The beloved chicken business, which currently has 11 locations, opened its first location at 3919 Scott St., across from Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church, on July 3, 1969. The restaurant, which aimed to dish out New Orleans cuisine in a quick-serve format, quickly became a favorite among locals and visitors alike, including Beyonce. In 2019, the flagship was torn down and opened in its temporary location later that year, but it was always in the plans to open a larger locale, King Creuzot says.

Creuzot says his father first sat down with an architect more than 50 years ago to discuss a permanent location and later began working on the project with Heisler around 25 years ago, according to the architect. The restaurant was originally slated for a separate piece of land, but that project was shelved due to issues with renters, Heisler said. After Percy Creuzot died in 2010, it was years before King Creuzot decided he and his mother wanted to move the original location using a land swap deal with Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church.

While the family and Heisler worked on budgets and securing budgets, the restaurant moved to a temporary location on Scott and Blodgett streets but found that costs associated with the restaurant had gone up, and code permits, following major hurricanes, changed, requiring a longer, more drawn-out process. 

Eventually, the restaurant secured leased land from the Houston Public Library system, Heisler said, but construction has still taken forever, and costs have increased by up to 40 percent.

The restaurant, which has already broken ground, is now weeks away from becoming a reality, according to Creuzot, with one of the last steps being to install equipment. 

All in all, Heisler says, “it’s become a labor of love.”

Fried Chicken Recipe from Food52

They say, "fried chicken as it's meant to be" but from the photos...well, that looks like some mighty overdone (cough *burned* cough fried chicken). Where's the golden brown color? Spice-wise and ingredients-wise it looks like a pretty good recipe. But I would remove the chicken when it reaches a golden color and finish in the oven to assure that the chicken is cooked through but still a nice color.

At any rate here is the link and the recipe in case you ever want to try this one. Be sure to read the comments sections as there is very valuable information contained there.

Food52 Fried Chicken As It's Meant To Be Article

The Recipe

Fried Chicken as It's Meant to Be

Ashley Rodriguez

You know you love your great aunt's banana bread, but you probably don't know why you do. In Modern Comfort, Ashley Rodriguez from Not Without Salt figures out what makes our favorite classics work, and then makes them even better. 

Today: How to crack the code on fried chicken (no matter how far away you are from the South). 

Portland, Oregon has bicycling Darth Vaders, 1890s-style facial hair, plenty of plaid flannel, and Pine State Biscuits. It’s also the home of the original Pok Pok, some of the best coffee in the country (I don’t say that lightly -- I’m from Seattle), and a few of our closest friends. Needless to say, my husband and I frequent this fair city quite often. Even though there are dozens of new restaurants to try each time we visit, it’s always Pine State Biscuits that I crave.
 It’s The McIsley -- a towering biscuit with shattering fried chicken, honey, and pickles that bite you back -- that lures me in. After several trips and many long waits in line, I decided that this was a project that I needed to conquer in my own kitchen.

Here’s the thing: I don’t have tales of Grandma’s legendary fried chicken and my cast-iron pan didn’t come to me by way of many generations of friers -- it came from Amazon. I am about as far away from the South as you can get, and yet I was determined to crack the code on fried chicken. 

That is the sort of project that I love: taking a classic recipe and rethinking it -- dissecting all the parts, not just the ingredients but also the method, and putting it back together in a way that produces a dish that just might challenge the original. It’s the sort of project I’ll be regularly taking on in this column.

To produce flavorful fried chicken with a thick, crisp crust, I start with a dry brine, which is a mix of several different dried herbs and spices including thyme, marjoram, and garlic powder. I find a dry brine to be less cumbersome than submerging all the meat in a liquid brine, plus it really saturates the meat. Before the chicken pieces are fried, they’re dipped in a subtly tangy buttermilk and egg and dredged in flour. Not only is the flour laced with baking powder and cornstarch, which give the crust lift, lightness, and a crackling finish, but it’s also flavored with spices used in the dry brine so that both the crust and the chicken are herb-infused.

The real kicker here is that the chicken pieces (I prefer boneless, skinless thighs) are dipped into the buttermilk and flour mixture two times so that the ratio of meat to perfectly thick, crisp, and well-seasoned crust is practically 1:1. In my cookbook, this chicken sits on a black pepper biscuit with pickles, a drizzle of honey, and plenty of seedy mustard -- my homage to The McIsley. When I’m not in the mood for biscuits I prefer a piece of fried chicken between two pieces of fluffy white bread along with mayonnaise and pickles.

Make enough for leftovers and enjoy the thinly sliced cold fried chicken over a bowl of greens. 

Buttermilk Fried Chicken

Serves 4

For the spice mix:

1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried marjoram
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons kosher salt
4 boneless, skinless chicken thighs (about 1 pound)

For the flour and buttermilk dredges:

1 cup (140 grams) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup (240 milliliters) buttermilk
1 egg
4 cups vegetable, canola, or peanut oil, for frying

Chris Colby - The Fried Chicken Conundrum

http://beerandwinejournal.com/the-fried-chicken-conundrum/

The Fried Chicken Conundrum

July 12, 2013 by Chris Colby 1 Comment

This fried chicken was brined in lambic (a sour wheat beer) before frying.

Fried chicken is one of my favorite foods. And beer is my favorite beverage. One way to bring these two together is by brining your chicken in beer prior to frying it. Today I’ll give a quick primer on making great fried chicken, with the focus on overcoming the major hurdle to frying chicken in this day and age. Tomorrow, I’ll give the full recipe and procedure.

Most fried chicken recipes involve soaking the bird in something before frying it. Buttermilk is probably the most common marinade, followed by a vinegar and salt brine. I use a vinegar and salt brine often, and I wondered if replacing some of the water with beer would make a difference. I decided to try it out with a hefe-weizen (a wheat beer) and a gueuze (a sour wheat beer).

The biggest problem people encounter when frying chicken these days is getting it to cook through without burning the outside. Or sometimes they cook the outside to perfection while leaving the inside nearly raw.

When my grandmother made fried chicken, she went out to the chicken house, chopped the heads off of a couple birds, plucked the feathers, disarticulated the pieces, and fried them. The chickens she fried were probably in the 2.5 lb. (~ 1 kg) range. Today, most supermarket birds are in the 3.5–4.0 lb. (1.6–1.8 kg) range.

In addition, when we fry chicken today, the pieces are cold from being stored in the fridge. Even after dredging the pieces in flour, the inside of the chicken pieces stay very close to refrigerator temperature. When our grandmothers fried chicken, the meat was slightly warm before it went in the pan. [A chicken’s body temperature is around 107 °F (41 °C).]

Some modern recipes call for frying the bird until the outside is nearly done, then finishing it off in a 350 °F (177 °C) oven. This works, but you need to clean an extra cookie sheet (or cover it aluminum foil). And to me, this just isn’t as satisfying as simply frying the chicken.

So, when frying chicken, your best bet is to find the smallest chicken you can. I can usually find birds around 3.0 lbs. (1.4 kg) at the supermarket if I look. In addition, you want to bring the bird to near room temperature (or slightly above) before you put it in the hot oil. To do this, I use a “hot wash” before dredging the pieces in flour.

After brining, you need to rinse the excess brine off the meat. To do this, I pour the brine out of the plastic bag, then fill the bag with hot (~120 °F/50 °C) tap water and let it sit for 5–10 minutes. This warms the meat, but doesn’t really begin cooking it. The outside of the meat turns white, but that’s it. The “hot wash” kills two birds with one stone — it rinses the excess brine off the outside of the bird and warms it to the point that it can be fried successfully. The inside temperature of the pieces usually rises to around 75 °F (24 °C).

To be sure, there are other ways to warm the bird before frying. I have seen recipes that call for leaving the dredged chicken out for a couple hours at room temperature before frying, but that seems like a recipe for food poisoning to me. Likewise, I thought about warming the pieces slightly in a microwave. However, unless the microwave heats very evenly, you will likely get chicken pieces with hot spots (the bones, esp.) and cold spots. Warming the chicken in water heats it very evenly.

This chicken is being fried in peanut oil at 350 °F (~180 °C). I’ll post a complete recipe tomorrow.

So, that’s the main hurdle you face and how I get over it. Once you’ve got room temperature chicken pieces, dredge them in flour and fry them in peanut oil (or lard) at 350 °F (~180 °C). Pull them out of the oil when their interior reaches 170 °F (77 °C). I’ll give a full recipe tomorrow, plus tell you how the two brines compared. (I’ll also tell you one way to deal with frying enormous chicken breasts.)

UPDATE 2017: For 2017, and National Fried Chicken Day, Chris added the following comments in a post to his Facebook page that I would like to share with you.

Brining Method from Louisiana Chef Extraordinaire, John Folse

Brining is a pretreatment in which the chicken is placed in a salt water solution known as brine. This produces a moist and well-seasoned bird. Normally, meat loses about 30 percent of its weight during cooking, but if you brine it first, you can reduce the moisture loss by as little as 15 percent. Additionally, brining enhances juiciness. The muscle fibers absorb the flavored liquid during the brining period. Some of this liquid will get lost during cooking, but since the meat is in a sense more juicy at the start of cooking, it ends up much juicier and flavorful. I recommend brining in two plastic trash bags, one inside the other, to hold the chicken and brine. I then place the bags in a large metal or ceramic bowl. Once the brine is added, I seal the bag with a wire tie and place in the bottom of a refrigerator, shaking the bag every couple hours. You may also place the bird in a small ice chest, breast down, covering with the brine. If using the ice chest method, chill the brine to approximately 40°F, and then add 5–6 ice packs to maintain temperature overnight. A smaller bird works best when brining. Ingredients for Brine: 1 chicken fryer 1 gallon cold water ½ cup kosher salt OR 1 cup table salt ¼ cup brown sugar 2 bay leaves, crushed ½ tbsp dried thyme ½ tbsp dried basil ½ tbsp dried sage 1 tbsp granulated garlic 1 tbsp black pepper Method: Begin brining 1 day prior to cooking. Use a fresh chicken or other bird, completely thawed. NOTE: Check label to ensure that bird has not been pre-injected with salt or other flavorings, otherwise it will be overseasoned. Wash bird completely. In a large stockpot, dissolve salt in 1 gallon cold water. Add brown sugar, and stir until completely dissolved. Add bay leaves, thyme, basil, sage, granulated garlic and pepper. Place 2 trash bags inside of a large metal bowl, and place chicken breast down in bags. Add brine mixture, tie bags with wire ties, and place in bottom of refrigerator. Chill 12–14 hours. NOTE: If desired, cut chill time in half by doubling all ingredients except water. Remove chicken from brine, rinse well inside and out under cold running water. Completely dry using paper towels. Ingredients for Chicken: vegetable oil for frying salt and black pepper to taste 1 cup flour Method: Cut chicken into 8 serving pieces. Heat vegetable oil in a homestyle deep fryer such as a FryDaddy®. Season chicken and flour separately with salt and pepper. In a gallon-size plastic zipper bag, place seasoned flour and 2 pieces of chicken. Seal bag and shake to coat each piece of chicken completely. Remove chicken, and repeat process with remaining pieces. Fry chicken, a few pieces at a time, until golden brown. Drain chicken on a paper towel-lined plate over a large bowl of hot water.

Lisa Fain - The Homesick Texan

Lisa Fain, author of Homesick Texas Cookbook (a must have) and of the Homesick Texas website offers up the following family recipe at her Homesick Texas website:


http://homesicktexan.blogspot.com/2007/07/anniversary-served-with-fried-chicken.html

John Besh - Fried Chicken Recipe

Here is the recipe from John Besh's latest cookbook:

Follow the link at the bottom of the page to order the book and to view the original article:

Here’s A Mouthwatering Step-By-Step Guide To Making The Most Insanely Delicious Fried Chicken

Literally nothing compares to that first bite of this crispy, crunchy coating and piping hot meat.

Literally nothing compares to that first bite of this crispy, crunchy coating and piping hot meat.

Lauren Zaser / Alice Mongkongllite / BuzzFeed

Lauren Zaser / BuzzFeed

“One of my sons always asks for this fried chicken for his birthday,” says Besh, who has twelve restaurants, four cookbooks, and a James Beard award. “It’s his favorite meal.” 

He put the recipe in his newest book, Besh Big Easy, which is a collection of all the meals he actually makes for his family. “When I cook at home, I like things that you can make in a single pot or pan,” he says. 

And, it turns out, the best, most authentic, Southern fried chicken is the kind you can make with just a few ingredients, in one skillet.

So we asked him to show us (and you, obvs) how to make it.

Here is everything you’ll need to make the fried chicken:

Lauren Zaser / BuzzFeed

Chicken, salt and pepper, canola oil, celery salt, cayenne pepper, garlic powder, flour, and buttermilk.

1. Set the chicken pieces on a cutting board and season liberally with salt and pepper on all sides.

Lauren Zaser / BuzzFeed

Besh started with a whole chicken, then cut it up to end up with two wings, two thighs, two drumsticks, and four breast pieces (cut each breast in half). You can see a video of him butchering the chicken at the bottom of this post.

If you don’t want to cut up a chicken — hey, NO SHAME — just buy three pounds of bone-in, skin-on chicken. A mix of breasts, thighs, and drumsticks is great, but you could use only your favorite parts, if you want.

2. Transfer the chicken to a large bowl and add the buttermilk, then let it sit for at least 15 minutes. Meanwhile, stir together the flour with the seasonings.

Lauren Zaser / BuzzFeed

If you want — or, if you plan far enough in advance — you can marinate the chicken in the buttermilk for as long as 12 hours. If you’re marinating for more than 20 minutes, cover and refrigerate the chicken-buttermilk mixture as it marinates.

3. Heat 1 to 2 inches of oil in a heavy skillet (cast iron is best) or Dutch oven over high heat.

Lauren Zaser / BuzzFeed

“The more oil you have, the more consistent the temperature will be,” Besh says. “With less oil, it’ll fluctuate a little more, and you might get dark spots. It’s a little harder to get that beautiful, crisp crust.”

4. When the oil reaches 350°F on a deep-fry thermometer, turn the heat down to medium. You’re ready to fry!

Lauren Zaser / BuzzFeed

You want to keep the oil as close to 350°F as possible for the entire cooking process, so you might have to adjust the heat of your burner up or down a little bit.

5. Transfer 3 to 4 pieces of chicken from the buttermilk to the flour mixture, letting any excess buttermilk drip off.

Lauren Zaser / BuzzFeed

You want the chicken to be wet enough that the flour will stick, but not dripping.

6. Use your hands to pack the flour onto all sides of the chicken, then, working with one piece at a time, shake off any excess flour…

Lauren Zaser / BuzzFeed

7. …and carefully place the dredged chicken in the hot oil.

Lauren Zaser / BuzzFeed

8. Repeat with 2 or 3 more pieces of chicken. Make sure your oil temperature doesn’t drop lower than about 340°F. Try and keep it at 350°F.

Lauren Zaser / BuzzFeed

9. Let the chicken fry for about 6 minutes, until it’s lightly browned on the underside.

Lauren Zaser / BuzzFeed

10. Use tongs or a slotted spoon to carefully flip each piece of chicken.

Lauren Zaser / BuzzFeed

11. Cook for 6 more minutes, until the chicken is cooked through and both sides are golden brown.

Lauren Zaser / BuzzFeed

Bigger pieces pieces will take longer to cook than the smaller pieces.

Besh knows when the chicken is done just by its golden brown color, because he’s a true pro. If you don’t trust yourself to know, you can cut a piece open and make sure it’s cooked all the way through (no pink), or you can insert a meat thermometer right into the middle of the piece of chicken. “I’d take it out at 140°F,” Besh says. “The politically correct answer would be 160°F, but if you take it out at 140°F, it’ll carry over.” 

By “carry over,” he means that the chicken will be so hot its internal temperature will continue to rise even after you take it out of the oil, so it’ll hit 160˚F anyway.

12. Lift the finished pieces of chicken out of the oil and transfer them to a paper towel-lined plate or baking sheet.

Lauren Zaser / BuzzFeed

13. Repeat the process, cooking 3 or 4 pieces of chicken at a time, until all the chicken is cooked. Season the cooked chicken with a little more salt and pepper, as soon as it comes out of the oil.

Lauren Zaser / BuzzFeed

14. We asked Besh if he serves his fried chicken with any kind of sauce, and he suggested Tabasco honey…

Lauren Zaser / BuzzFeed

…which is literally just honey with a little Tabasco mixed in.

Lauren Zaser / BuzzFeed

Turns out, Tabasco honey is really, REALLY good, and you should put it on everything.

Lauren Zaser / BuzzFeed

You can spoon it right onto a crispy piece of chicken…

Lauren Zaser / BuzzFeed

……… !!!!!!!!!!!!!!………

Lauren Zaser / BuzzFeed

… or you can serve the chicken straight-up, with the honey on the side.

Lauren Zaser / BuzzFeed

Grandmother Grace’s Fried Chicken

Makes 6 servings

Recipe by John Besh, from Besh Big Easy

For this recipe, you can use a whole chicken cut into 10 pieces, or you can just buy 3 pounds of bone-in, skin-on chicken pieces. Make sure the breasts are cut in half and the drumsticks and thighs are separated. 

INGREDIENTS
For the chicken:
3 pounds bone-in, skin-on chicken pieces, preferably from one whole chicken
Salt and pepper
1 quart buttermilk
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon celery salt
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Canola oil, for frying

For the tabasco honey:
1/2 cup honey
1 teaspoon tabasco, or more to taste. 

PREPARATION
For the chicken:
Season the chicken pieces generously with salt and pepper. In a large bowl, soak the chicken in the buttermilk for at least 15 minutes. The idea is that the lactic acids tenderize the chicken. Sometimes my grandmother would even put the soaking chicken in the fridge overnight.

Mix together the flour, celery salt, garlic powder, cayenne, salt, and pepper in a large bowl. Dredge each chicken piece in the seasoned flour to coat well. The batter should just barely adhere to the chicken, so make sure you give each piece a little shake to let extra batter drop off before frying. 

Heat about 1 to 2 inches of canola oil in a heavy skillet or Dutch oven until it reaches 350°F (get a deep-fry thermometer here). Place a few pieces of the chicken in the oil — you can’t do more than 3 or 4 at a time without causing the oil temperature to drop, which makes for greasier chicken — and fry for 6 to 8 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, turn each piece over, then cover the pan to cook for another 6 minutes. The chicken is done when it’s deep brown, cooked through. Drain on paper towels and salt well.

For the Tabasco honey:
Mix the honey and Tabasco in a small bowl and serve alongside the chicken, for dipping or drizzling.

For more authentic Southern recipes you can actually cook at home, check out Besh’s new book.

amazon.com

Get it here ($25).

1) Pull the leg away from the body make a cut in the skin right where the thigh meets the body. Once you’ve cut the skin, pull the whole leg backwards to pop the joint and pull the leg off the body. Repeat with the other leg.
2) Cut the wings off right at the second joint (where the wing meets the breast).
3) Remove the breasts by cutting lengthwise down the breast bone. Use your knife to scrape the breast meat away from the ribs, all the way down, until the breasts are completely detached. (Besh used his hands to just rip the meat off, which is another option.)
4. Cut each breast piece in half, crosswise.
5. Cut the legs into two pieces each (the thigh and the drumstick): Do this by cutting diagonally through the leg joint that separates the thigh and the drumstick. You’ll have to push down on your knife, but it should go through fairly easily when you find the joint.

Original article here:

https://www.buzzfeed.com/christinebyrne/perfect-fried-chicken?utm_term=.pekQRn74m#.yaY90PeX2