Name: Southern Fried Chicken (Buttermilk-Brined)
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 1 h
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 1.4 kg chicken; 600 ml buttermilk; 18 g salt; 1 tbsp sugar; 2 tbsp hot sauce; 300 g plain flour; 50 g cornstarch; 1 tbsp paprika; 2 tsp garlic powder; 2 tsp onion powder; 2 tsp black pepper; 1 tsp cayenne; 2 tsp salt; 2 L vegetable oil

Ingredients

4servings

The brine (serves 4)
chicken · jointed into 8-10 bone-in pieces1.4 kg
buttermilk · or 400ml plain yoghurt let down with 200ml milk600 ml
salt · about 3% of the buttermilk; this is the key ingredient18 g
sugar1 tbsp
hot sauce · Tabasco-style; optional2 tbsp
The dredge
plain flour300 g
cornstarch50 g
paprika1 tbsp
garlic powder2 tsp
onion powder2 tsp
black pepper2 tsp
cayenne1 tsp
salt2 tsp
To fry
vegetable oil · or lard; something with a high smoke point2 L

Steps

Stir the 18g of salt, the sugar and the hot sauce into the buttermilk until the salt has fully dissolved. The salt is the point of this soak — the buttermilk is the medium that holds it against the meat, and it adds acid and lactose of its own.
⏲ 5 min
Submerge the chicken completely and refrigerate at least 4 hours, and overnight is better. For the first half hour the salt draws water out of the surface; after that it is reabsorbed with the salt and seasons the meat all the way through (salt and seasoning).
⏲ 240 min
Mix the flour, cornstarch, spices and salt in a big bowl. Drizzle 3–4 tablespoons of the brine into that flour and rub it through with your fingers. The flour should be lumpy in patches — those lumps fry into the craggy parts of the crust.
⏲ 5 min
Lift the pieces out one at a time. Let the excess drip off but do not wipe them. The thin film of buttermilk left on the surface is the glue that holds the flour.
⏲ 5 min
Turn each piece in the flour, press it on hard with your hand, then turn it again. Shake off the loose flour and leave the pieces 10 minutes — the coating takes up moisture and sets, and a set coating does not slide off in the oil.
⏲ 10 min
Pour oil 5cm deep into a heavy pan and bring it to 165°C. Use a thermometer, and fry only three or four pieces at a time. Crowd the pan and the temperature drops and oil soaks into the coating (deep frying).
⏲ 10 min
12–16 minutes for bone-in pieces, turned once only. Breast comes out at 74°C, legs and thighs at 80°C. If the colour is running ahead of the temperature, turn the heat down.
⏲ 16 min
Onto a rack. On kitchen paper the underside steams itself soft. Rest 5 minutes and add the barest extra pinch of salt. Straight from the pan and at room temperature are both correct for this dish.
⏲ 5 min

Tips & Variations

Variations

Nashville hot: after frying, cayenne and brown sugar are whisked into some of the frying oil and ladled over. Because it is spice suspended in fat rather than a sauce, the crust does not go soft.
Pressure-fried: how commercial fried chicken is made — pressure raises the boiling point and the inside cooks far faster. Not something to attempt in a domestic pressure cooker.
No buttermilk: plain yoghurt let down with milk, or 600ml of milk with 2 tbsp of lemon juice left to stand 10 minutes. Similar acidity.
Boneless: thigh fillets drop the frying time to 8–10 minutes. The meat nearest the bone is the best of it, though.
How it differs from yangnyeom chicken and dak gangjeong: both of those use starch alone, fry twice and finish in a sauce. This is a flour coating, fried once, with no sauce at all — the crust is the dish.

Tips

The buttermilk soak is really a brine. None of this site's four fried chickens — yangnyeom chicken, dak gangjeong, karaage, buffalo wings — puts the bird in salted liquid. Salt and seasoning is explicit: salt draws water out for the first half hour and after that it is reabsorbed with the salt, seasoning the meat all the way through. Four hours to overnight is that window. Salted water alone would do most of this, and buttermilk with no salt in it does almost nothing.
The acid does not tenderise the meat. Sauerbraten corrects the same misconception: acid stops a few millimetres in. What the lactic acid in buttermilk does is soften that outer few millimetres — and the thing below.
The acid's real job is the crust. Buttermilk is far thicker than water and slightly acidic, so worked into flour it clumps like a batter. That is why step 3 deliberately drizzles some brine into the dredge: you want lumpy flour, not a smooth film, because the lumps are what fry into the broken, craggy surface.
Drip, do not wipe. The thin film left on the surface is the glue. Wiped dry, the flour will not stick; dripping wet, the coating turns into thick batter.
165°C, and a thermometer. Bone-in pieces need 12–16 minutes, and at 180°C the crust burns long before that. Deep frying explains the trade — too cool and oil seeps in, too hot and only the outside cooks — and 165°C is where that lands for pieces on the bone.
Rest the coated pieces 10 minutes before frying. It gives the coating time to set. Straight from the flour into the oil and it sheds in the pan.
Cool on a rack. On paper the underside steams itself soft (serving temperature).

The basics behind this dish

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