Who You Callin' Chicken?
Nashville Hot Chicken and foods synonymous with place
Good evening! All foods must have come from a particular town or city once. There is something appealingly definitive about foods that wear their birthplace proudly in their name. If a dish has become synonymous with its origin, has it earned its culinary stripes? My favourites are Niçoise Salad, Staffordshire Oatcakes, Chicken Milanese and now, Nashville Hot Chicken.
I haven’t even been to Staffordshire, Milan or Nashville but I like that I can cook or eat their most famous dishes, and pretend I am there. There is no rule against it. Rule making in the kitchen is for wusses.
And so to Nashville, the capital of Country music, for the hottest fried chicken of your life. This recipe was shared with me by a secret friend who knows what they are talking about. The chicken is double-dredged in its batter which is then left to sit, so the meat becomes amalgamated with the batter and fries like a dream.
There’s no getting around it, this recipe uses a lot of spices. You might need to go to the shop to pick some up. I found them all at a super-sized Sainsburys where I had the time of my life Googling the difference between cayenne and paprika. I am easily pleased.
I’m sharing a recipe for a slaw and a kinda Ranch sauce to go with it. If you are a vegetarian and want to have the Hot Oil Experience, you could try some mushrooms or cauliflower fried in the batter and then dipped in the oil and seasoning to go with the same accompaniments - frying times will vary.
You could do a lot worse than listen to my boyfriend Charles’ Country and Bluegrass playlist while you’re preparing this feast. Pull those sleeves up and step on in to Thea’s Country Kitchen!
Nashville Hot Chicken
Buttermilk Brine
200g buttermilk
60ml water
2 tsp salt
½ tsp black pepper
1 tbsp pickle juice (from a jar of pickles)
Hot pepper sauce (Tabasco/anything fermented/vinegary), 1 tsp
12 x 50g chicken tenders (from about 3 chicken breasts)
Oil for frying (at least 600ml)
Seasoned Flour
350g plain flour
¼ tsp baking powder
120g corn flour
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp salt
4 tsp onion powder
3 tsp garlic powder
5 tsp smoked paprika
Hot Flavoured Oil
350ml veg/sunflower/corn oil
2 tsp salt
40g cayenne pepper
20g smoked paprika
15g Kashmiri chilli powder
15g onion powder
15g garlic powder
30g light brown sugar
Dry Seasoning (makes 50g - keeps for a couple of months)
25g Cajun seasoning (check it has citric acid in it)
1 ½ tsp salt (or MSG)
1 ½ tsp cayenne pepper
1 ½ tsp smoked paprika
¾ tsp garlic powder
½ tsp chilli powder
½ light brown sugar
2-3 tsp chilli powder (this is the modifier - choose cayenne if you just want it hot, or use ‘hot’ chilli powder if you want it mega hot)
Makes 12 tenders
Measure out and whisk together the Buttermilk Brine marinade. Marinate the 12 tenders in the brine overnight, or for a few hours in a sealed container. Leave in the fridge.
For the Hot Flavoured Oil, mix together all the dry ingredients in a heatproof bowl. Warning, this stuff’ll have you wanting to sneeze - go slow, take deep breaths. In a pan, heat up the 350ml oil to 150°c - which is about when you can see heat waves around the oil and when it bubbles slowly and gently around the end of a wooden spoon. Now pour the hot oil over the spices, and whisk to mix the spices through. It’ll foam up and bubble up a bit, but it should not go crazy.
In a wide and flat container, whisk together all the ingredients for the Seasoned Flour. In a small bowl, mix together all the ingredients for the Dry Seasoning.
Now it’s time to dredge, using the double dredge method. Get the marinating chicken and carefully pour off some of the buttermilk brine into a separate, wide and flat container. Now you will have a wet hand and a dry hand. With the wet hand, lift out the brined chicken and drop it into the seasoned flour container. With your dry hand, pick up the flour and sprinkle it over the chicken to cover it, then put the floured chicken into the new buttermilk container, coat, dripping off the excess, then place it back in the dry container. Use the dry hand to move it around the flour and press the flour into the chicken to properly coat it. It should look shaggy and craggy when it’s done. Finally, lift the chicken out of the flour and leave it on the rack to rest and for the flour to properly adhere. This will take 15 mins. Repeat with all 12 tenders. Just before frying, if there are any wet spots on the chicken pieces, carefully press a little more seasoned flour into those.
When you’re ready to fry, get a tray with a baking rack above it in your oven and heat to 90°c. Get your pan of frying oil heating up gently to 160-170°c (it’s important it isn’t hotter than this, so as not to burn the chicken). When the oil has reached temperature (check it bubbles quickly around a stick or wooden spoon), fry 3-4 tenders at a time for approximately 7 minutes. When it’s done, the chicken should be golden and crisp (see Tip below). Season with a touch of salt straight away when it comes out of the fryer.
When each batch has cooked, put the chicken to rest on the rack in the oven for about 10 minutes.
When ready to serve, using your hands, or tongs, dunk the chicken into the hot oil. (If you don’t like the thought of dunking, you can brush the hot oil on the chicken or spoon it over the tenders in a bowl, then toss). Remove each piece of chicken from the oil and place on a serving plate, then dust it all very liberally with the hot seasoning mix. Serve your Nashville Hot Chicken tenders simply with the Buttermilk Ranch Sauce below and a few pickles on top, OR in burgers with the Slaw and Ranch below.
Tip: You need to slightly overcook your chicken and fry it for longer than you may think, as you need to remove a fair amount of water from it. If you cook the chicken perfectly, it will result in a loose batter as liquid seeps out of the meat, and you won’t be able to dunk it into the hot oil effectively without it slipping off.
Buttermilk Ranch Sauce
2 tbsp mayonnaise
½ cup buttermilk
½ tsp garlic powder
½ tsp onion powder
¼ tsp celery salt
2 tbsp chives, finely chopped
Black pepper
Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl. Keep chilled.
Simple Slaw
½ a small white cabbage, shredded
1 carrot, thinly grated
¼ brown onion, finely chopped
3 pickles, roughly chopped
2 tbsp chives, finely chopped
1 tbsp pickle juice
2 tbsp mayonnaise
Salt and pepper
Mix all the vegetables together. Preferably using your hands (or a fork and spoon), toss the pickle juice, mayo, salt and pepper through the vegetables, coating everything well and massaging it a little bit. Keep chilled.
If you’ve now got a tonne of Hot Flavoured Oil left and no idea what to do with it, allow me to suggest a few ways to make use of this high-octane oil:
Use a tbsp in addition to the Sambal/Sriracha in my Cabbage Pasta.
Drizzle some over your next roast chicken.
Mix some with sesame paste instead of chilli oil to create a Dan Dan Noodle inspired dish.
Fry beef strips or peppers in it for Fajitas.
Brush it on cooked corn cobs with a little butter.
Add a tsp to your salad dressings.
The Dry Seasoning will keep in a sealed jar for months and can be used to season chips, wedges, or devilled eggs.
The leftover frying oil can be reused 2-3 times. I made chips and croquettes in it and both were almost too good to be true.
Any leftover chicken will keep well for 3 days - just reheat it in a 150°oven for 15-20 minutes.
See you very soon!