USA: Tennessee - Hot Chicken


Hot Chicken is a Nashville speciality and a food from Tennessee that JD hasn't tried before so we're looking forward to making it. It's marinaded in buttermilk and hot sauce, more spice added to the seasoned coating and then further spice brushed on after frying in the form of a paste. Sounds HOT! 

The creation of Hot Chicken reportedly came about when a cheating husband was given chicken laced with hot sauce for his breakfast as revenge. But he loved it and along with his brothers created it for their cafe in Nashville.


Ingredients:

8 pieces chicken

oil for frying


For the marinade:

1 cup buttermilk

1/3 cup hot sauce


For the coating:

2 1/2 cups flour

3 tablespoons cornflour

1 tablespoon salt

1 tablespoon paprika

1 teaspoon cayenne

2 teaspoons pepper

1/2 teaspoon garlic granules


For the paste:

1 tablespoon brown sugar

1 teaspoon cayenne

1 teaspoon chili powder

1 teaspoon garlic granules

1 teaspoon paprika


To serve:

white bread

pickle slices



Put the chicken in a bowl with the buttermilk and hot sauce. Give it a good stir and put to one side.

Put the coating ingredients in another bowl. Stir well.


Take the chicken and in turn dip into the coating, back into the buttermilk and into the coating again. Place on a plate to rest.


Leave to rest for 10-15 minutes so the coating sets a little. Heat up some oil in a thick based pan about 2 inches deep.


Fry in batches, keeping pieces warm in the oven while you cook it all. The chicken took about 10 minutes to cook in the hot oil. We used a food thermometer to check it had reached the correct temperature before putting in the oven.


Mix the paste ingredients in a bowl with about a ladle full of the hot oil. When the chicken is all done brush the paste all over the chicken giving it a dark brown colour.


Serve on a couple of slices of white bread with sliced pickles on top. Eat as a sandwich with extra hot sauce drizzled on to suit your heat preference.


This was the most successful fried chicken we've ever made and I was delighted with it. It tasted good, not TOO hot but still quite spicy. I had decided on a quite mild hot sauce to use thinking that it'd be easier to add more to the sandwich rather than have it too hot to eat. It worked out well, JD and I enjoyed the chicken. The coating was crunchy with a really nice, sweet flavour from the brown sugar spice paste. We both said we'd eat it again and maybe the next time we're in America we can look some out to try over there too. Well worth a try if you like spicy food.


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