Gobbo,

Just so I have this process down it goes like the following -

Sous vide chicken
Fry chicken (using standard breading or mixing the designated spice mix into flour)
Use frying oil from chicken and mix with spices to form a "sauce" that coats the chicken

Please post results as I am very interested!

No pictures but goddamn that was the best fried chicken I have ever eaten. The breading was so ****ing delicious. I need to add more salt to the sous vide process next time as the buttermilk/soy sauce blend I used didn't really infuse very much flavor.

Cultured buttermilk for the breading process made ALL the difference. It was very much night and day as far as the crust went. I used breast and thigh meat and cut the breasts into strips.

The sauce was good but I don't know if Vegas is going to love the flavor of pretty much all cayenne. However, I tried a new spice blend of garam masala, brown sugar and hot curry powder and people LOVED it. It was absolutely delicious. I'm going to see if there are other things I can do. But the regular fried chicken by itself was absolutely delicious as well. I'm thinking maybe I can even just do like a spicy maple syrup that would go great on it.

Amazing gobbo.

what kind of breading did you use? also what oil and temp?

Bread flour, paprika, garlic powder, salt, pepper. Cultured buttermilk. Chicken went buttermilk, breading, buttermilk, breading, fry.

I used a mix of grapeseed and vegetable oil cause that's what we had on hand. 375 degree fry but I'd like to go to 400 when I have a fryer capable of it.

thanks! i've dreamt of deep frying my delicious sous vide chicken breast for a long time, might actually do it now

I cut the breast up into a few long pieces to increase surface area because one end gets REALLY thick after time in the fryer. Thighs I just did whole. I want to be able to make sandwiches fairly easy because one of these things on a bun with mayo and pickles is ****ing delicious.

Is sous vide even necessary if you are deep frying? Won't sous vide then deep fry actually overcook the chicken?

Also, surprised that there is no brining.

This already sounds better than all restaurant chicken I've had.

This time I bagged the chicken with buttermilk and soy sauce to kind of marinade/brine but the flavor didn't really come through. Previous time I bagged with just salt and it did come through pretty heavily though so I will be doing that going forward. This brining while cooking works very well.

Sous vide definitely improves the product. If you fry a chicken breast normally from raw you will have to cook it for almost 20 minutes at a lower temperature to avoid burning the outside. This overcooks the chicken by the time you get the outside looking nice and brown and crispy and leads to more oil getting in the crust leaving it with a very greasy KFC finish.

If the chicken is cooked, drained and chilled before you start prepping, it's fully cooked so you do not have to worry about safety and all you have to do is reheat (easily done because frying is so efficient) and crisp the breading on the outside. So what took 20 minutes now takes 4 minutes of time in a 400 degree fryer which leads to the outside not being nearly as greasy but WAY more crispy and delicious because it's far more brown. The interior, because it's starting at a fridge's temperature but still fully cooked, has a huge range of temps you can get it to but still be perfectly cooked and not at all chalky like normal overcooked chicken gets.

Long and short of it is that it was strictly better than normal fried chicken.

Hmm, might have to give it a try.

What oil do you use for frying?

Yea I'm sold that process sounds awesome.

here's the wet chicken brine i use that has turned out consistently delicious results for boneless chicken breasts that have been pounded to a consistent thickness:
8 cups cold water
slightly less than a 1/3 cup salt
slightly less than a 1/4 cup sugar

scale the ratio as necessary. half of the above ingredients is enough for 4 breast halves when put in the proper container. brining overnight seems to have better results, but it's been tasty when brined for 2-3 hours.

obviously breading and frying is a different process, but i liberally pepper each side (sometime adding a homemade rub mix) and cook in a 375* oven until internal temp hits ~153*. pull, tent with foil for a few minutes, and enjoy.

Anything with a 400+ smoke point is fine, I haven't really noticed a difference. Vegetable, grapeseed, corn, canola all work.

Gobbo,

Have you ever done the ad hoc fried chicken recipe?

Not technically but I got this recipe from chefsteps and they specifically mention using Keller's double dredge method so this is pretty damn close.

I learned how to use it in about 7 minutes of you tube viewing, from dull to shaving sharp in probably 10 minutes faster if youre starting with a decent edge. Its legitimately fool proof.

anyone know if it's feasible to add some sort of spice to a chicken brine and have it be present in the flavor of the finished product? initial thoughts were some sort of liquid spice like tabasco or hot sauce, but also curious about things like chili paste or dried powders like cayenne mixed into the wet.

Just boil the brine, steep like tea for a while, and chill before adding the chicken.

It can be subtle but it does add flavor

thx

It isn't hot sauce, but Thomas Keller has a chicken brine in Ad Hoc at Home. I have made it. Chicken brings very easily.

Why no pics Gobbo?

Sounds delicious, I'd love to see how it came out looking

Cause I made it for a bunch of people and I had tons of stuff to do. The deep fryer I was using was very small so I had to do it in a ton of batches.

I am 100% going to make it again so there will be pics I'm sure.

Made Kenji's sous vide brisket (finished in oven) + sweet and sour collard greens and a wasabi foam.






^pre-oven, post sous-vide (taken with a potato obv)


post oven




in an oblate (potato starch) shell


or like a normal person might eat

maybe my question wasn't clear...i brine chicken breasts almost every week. typically i brine them in salt+sugar and bake in the oven. i usually either dust with a home made rub or use lots of cracked black pepper (or both) after brining and before the oven.

i was wondering if if was possible/feasible to add something else to the brine that would successfully translate into a spicy flavor in the finished product.