Time: 45 Minutes (after overnight soaking)

Serves: 6

Ingredients

• 12 Drumsticks (or your favorite type of fried chicken cut)
• 3 Cups Buttermilk
• ½ Cup Sugar
• 2 tsp. Onion powder
• 2 tsp. Garlic powder
• 2 tsp. Paprika
• 2 tsp. Celery Salt
• 2 tsp. Salt
• 2 tsp. Pepper
• 1 box Tempura Batter

I love discovering and cooking international cuisine. But sometimes it’s time to go back to my Southern roots. The South has an amazing assortment of flavors for protein. Growing up on a cattle farm, protein usually meant beef. My dad to this day still refers to chicken as “meat” substitute. I used to think he was joking but after one fateful night in which he proudly declared he was going to cook a vegetarian dinner and plopped down a soup with a chicken broth base, I’ve not been so sure. Point being, we are a meat focused family.

Regardless of where you are from there are three Southern dishes you probably know: Biscuits, Collard Greens, and Fried Chicken. Today we are going to focus on the protein. Fried chicken is the perfect picnic protein. It can be served hot; room temp or cold. You can make it before hand and let it sit and you can combine with many, many things. This fried chicken recipe combined with genuine Belgian style waffles is one of the best dishes you’ll ever eat (talk about cultural mashups!)

Directions:

I love drumsticks so when I make this recipe, I tend to stick with the best. However, everyone’s taste in chicken is different. If you are a wing guy/gal, prefer the thighs, like to go boneless, or just like to mix and match, feel free to use whichever pieces fit your fancy.

Rinse off and pat dry the drumsticks and place them in a metal bowl. Cover with buttermilk (make sure it gets into all of the nooks and crannies!) Cover with plastic wrap and marinate overnight in the fridge.

Remove the buttermilk and pat the drumsticks dry. By dry I mean dry! The first time I made this recipe I was running behind and I decided that mostly dry was the same as dry. I rushed through the pat down process and jumped straight to the oil. Quick chemistry lesson—what happens when you add cold milk to hot oil? Yup! Boom! A pocket of buttermilk still on the chicken hit the oil and exploded. Three weeks later I still had burn marks on my right hand. Take the time to dry off your chicken!

Combine the spices and sugar in a bowl.  Using a big enough bowl to shake the drumsticks around, thoroughly coat the chicken. The secret here is to spice your chicken before you bread it. Do not mix the spices into the flour. Lots of people do this. I have never understood it. It dilutes the spices and most of them end up getting thrown in the trash with your excess flour or batter.

There are lots of different fried chicken recipes which use lots of different types of breading. Some use flour, some use cornmeal, some use flakes. None of these are wrong. When you start to experiment with your own fried chicken recipe, you should experiment with them all till you find the taste that you like best. Personally, I find that nothing works better than tempura batter. Yup, you heard me right. Japanese Kikkoman tempura batter. Tempura batter is used extensively in Asian cuisine and can be used to fry just about anything from chicken to seafood to vegetables. In this case, it is the perfect coating for fried chicken.

No need to follow the instructions on the box. Simply pour the powder into a bowl and coat three to four drumsticks at a time. Leave the chicken in the powder until right before frying, as this will absorb extra moisture.

Regardless of the size of your kitchen, if you are going to learn to cook Southern food, you must own at least one cast iron skillet. They are a pain to clean and they take a long time to properly season but it imparts a unique flavor onto the meat and it is the most even frying experience you will get, short of a deep fryer. Trust me, it’s worth it!

Coat the bottom of your skillet in 1 inch of vegetable oil and bring to medium high heat. Don’t skimp on the oil here. It’s fried chicken. It’s not meant to be low fat! You will know you have reached the right temperature, when you sprinkle flour over the oil and it makes small bubbles in the pan. If the flour simply floats around in the pan, the oil temperature is too low. If the oil is popping on its own before you put the flour in the pan, its temperature is too high.

Once the oil has reached the right temperature, place the drumsticks in the skillet and fry for three minutes on each side. Make sure not to overcrowd the pan! Give each little drumstick its own space. It shouldn’t be touching the drumstick next to it.

Once evenly fried, remove the chicken and place on a paper towel  to absorb the extra grease. Then place each piece in a baking dish. When all of the drumsticks are fried, place the dish in a 350-degree oven for 15 minutes.

Take one drumstick out to test: When you slice into it the meat should be white and the juices should run clear. If the meat is pink and/or the juices run red, put it back in the oven.

Enjoy with collards, biscuits, coleslaw or any other combination of your favorite Southern dishes!