Chicken Recipes: Spicy Southern Fried Chicken

Chicken Recipes Series

Beware: This post contains pictures of fried chicken that are definitely NOT healthy nor oil-free nor low-fat so be prepared for some artery-clogging but worth-every-bite sorta recipe!

I love fried chicken. There’s no two ways about it. If you follow this blog, I am sure you’ve probably read my ravings of Uncle Bob’s Fried Chicken. Heck, I even posted my own version of crunchy fried chicken quite a while back.

And now, I’ve found another fried chicken recipe and promptly gave it a try – a la Foong style. Yep, instead of following the full recipe to a T, I did some modifications. I can’t help it, it’s a genetic fault within me somewhere. And anyway, it’s not easy to get most of the ingredients from the original recipe so what am I gonna do? I improvise, of course! This is probably one of my favorite chicken recipes.

Heheh…I know, it started out as Spicy Southern Fried Chicken but hey, this is cooking we are talking about. It is all about creativity (and what we have in our kitchen to concoct these masterpieces) so I believe I am allowed some creative license to change it about.

Alright, alright. I’m getting to the recipe already. Do note that I, once again, failed to record and measure the exact amount of ingredients so the amounts listed here are mostly ‘guesstimated’.Do tweak it to suit your portion of chicken.

Here is my:

Spicy Fried Chicken Recipe

Ingredients

1/2 chicken, chopped

2 cups vegetable shortening (or more)

For marinade:

1 1/2 cups milk

1 lemon

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp paprika chili flakes

To coat the chicken:

2 cups flour

1 tbsp baking powder

1 cup oat bran (yes, I know…I am obsessed with using oat bran to cook chicken!)

A dash of pepper

A dash of salt

Instructions

1. Clean and dry the chicken. Remove the skin if you are health conscious (although it doesn’t really matter either way since this is deep fried and not exactly a health food).

3. Place the chicken in a plastic bag.

Note: For the marinade, it was supposed to be buttermilk but sadly, we don’t have that easily available here. So, I improvised. I read somewhere that to make buttermilk, we just need to add lemon and milk together so that’s what I did! I pour in the milk and then squeeze in the lemon juice.

4. Let it marinade for several hours or it is even better to leave it in the fridge overnight, which is what I did.

8. Heat up your pan and pour in the vegetable shortening. Wait for it to melt and thoroughly heat up.

Note: if you use a deep-fryer, it will be easier and you don’t have to turn the chicken all the time to make sure it is completely cooked. Since I don’t use a deep fryer and I don’t like putting a lot of oil / vegetable shortening to really deep fry the chicken,  I have to turn the chicken every now and then. I also kept the heat at medium to make sure it doesn’t burn the chicken.

A closer look at the fabulously crunchy fragrant fried chicken!

However, to test whether it is completely cooked, you could poke the flesh with a skewer and if it comes away easily showing white flesh, then it is cooked. Just like the picture below…

Now, if you prefer it to be more spicy, you could follow the original spicy southern fried chicken recipe or add a few tablespoons of paprika chili flakes.

I find that if you marinade the chicken overnight, it leaves the flesh extremely tender and juicy on the inside. The homemade buttermilk managed to soften it and at the same time give it a crunchiness that I simply love!

Hah, KFC, eat your heart out! I think my chicken is way better than the miserable tiny bite-size fried chicken that fastfood has been serving in recent times. Keep a lookout for more chicken recipes and even chicken breast recipes in future here.

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