The food lab better home cooking through science ( PDFDrive ) 1087

instead of the crisp, crunchy crust of the chicken dropped into the fryer immediately after dredging Why is this? Once again, it’s our friend gluten ‡ ‡ As the chicken rests, the flour in the dredging gradually absorbs moisture from the buttermilk and the surface of the chicken As it absorbs moisture, its proteins begin to unfold and link up with each other, forming a sheath that grows tougher and tougher as it sits Let it sit for too long, and you’ll get a crust hard enough to crack your teeth Fried chicken should be crisp, never tough, and to achieve this goal, you want to get your chicken from flour to oil as rapidly as possible Of course, this introduces a problem: freshly dredged chicken will release a ton of dry flour into the oil, which will cause the oil to go bad very fast My advice is to shake the bejeezus out of those chicken pieces in a metal strainer as they come out of the flour mix so that there are as few excess particles of flour as possible EXTRA-CRUNCHY SOUTHERN FRIED CHICKEN SERVES 4 2 tablespoons paprika 2 tablespoons freshly ground black pepper 2 teaspoons garlic powder 2 teaspoons dried oregano ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper 1 cup buttermilk 1 large egg Kosher salt ...EXTRA-CRUNCHY SOUTHERN FRIED CHICKEN SERVES 4 2 tablespoons paprika 2 tablespoons freshly ground black pepper 2 teaspoons garlic powder