Southern-style deep fried chicken - gluten free

Deep fried chicken -  based on southern-style deep fried chicken recipe by Nigella Lawson

If you can't / don't eat egg, use tapioca gel as a way of getting the coating to stick.  Make this by taking 10g tapioca flour, 100ml water, stir together while cold, then heat stirring constantly.  I find this an effective way of getting things to stick - coatings, seeds on bread etc.

Poach chicken pieces in stock until cooked.  This means that when you fry them you are only cooking the coating, so you can do it fast and hot, and you don’t have to worry about the safety of the chicken.  You can do this the day before and refrigerate until needed.

poach chicken until cooked

Pat dry.  I left the skin on as that is what the recipe suggested but I would remove this next time.

poached chicken

Heat fryer to 170 degrees C

For two chicken legs (four pieces):

1 egg,  mix and place on shallow plate

75g flour  (40% urid, 40% tapioca, 20% cornmeal)

seasoning for the flour – pick your favourites, and put in quite a lot as this thin coating will be the main flavour hit for the whole chicken piece.  I use garlic powder, chilli and paprika.

Place flour mix in a bag.  Put the chicken pieces in one at a time and shake to coat.  Dip in egg until coated, then put back in the flour and shake. Slightly messy activity but very easy.

coat with egg and flour

Place in hot fat and cook for a couple of minutes until crisp and golden.   Dip in slowly so that the coating starts to cook before you let the chicken fall into the fat. If you hold each piece with tongs you can do this safely. This will stop your batter sticking to the wire basket. Drain on a wire rack.

crisp fried chicken

I froze some and reheated.  They were fine so make a big batch while you have the fryer set up. 

TT says they are crisper than the bought fried chicken.  Having been poached, the chicken is succulent and thoroughly cooked.  Vary the broth and the flour seasoning to suit your taste.

Nigella Lawson, whose recipe I based this on, poaches the chicken in milk.  I used stock to avoid the lactose and milk proteins.

Deep fried mushrooms

deep-fried chestnut mushrooms

While I had oil hot in the new fryer I did a few extra foods. One of these was deep fried mushrooms.  I was amazed at how tender and succulent they were, and how non-greasy.


Put the deep fat fryer on at about 175C.  Make sure it gets up to temperature, then I recommend agitating the basket and making sure it comes up to temperature again.  This avoids variations in the oil and reduces the risk of the mushrooms lowering the temperature too much.

When I first started frying I lifted the basket out of the oil, placed the food on the basket and then lowered it slowly.  I did this to reduce the risk of the fat frothing.  However, this technique means that the food sticks to the basket.  If you can manage to lower the food slowly into the oil so that it begins to cook before you let go then you don't get it sticking to the basket.  If the pieces of food are small, as in the mushrooms, you can lower them in a slotted spoon and swirl it as it goes down.

I based it on this battered mushroom recipe

Battered mushrooms

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/deep-fried-mushrooms/Detail.aspx

·      100g - 150g flour

·      150 water

·      1 egg

·      1 tsp garlic salt

·      mushrooms

Whisk dry ingredients, whisk in egg and water, cover mushrooms with batter and deep fry for about three minutes – until the batter is crisp.  If you want it to be a more golden colour quicker put a little sugar in the batter.  Gluten-free flours don't brown in quite the same way as wheat.

I simply substituted my flour (urid 40%, tapioca 40% and cornmeal 20%) and added some chili powder and paprika for a bit of extra zip.  Make the batter thick enough that it doesn't all drip off the mushrooms.  By adjusting how thick the batter is you can get mushrooms with a thin crisp skin or a thick bubbly coating.  I did a variety of thicknesses and decided I liked the ones where the batter was quite thick.

Drain on a rack or paper as wanted.  If you have the fat at the right temperature you should find that very little oil comes off the food.

very little fat left on paper

crisp, succulent and lightly golden