I think restaurants usually do fried chicken better, but I want to change that

Time: 2 hours

Difficulty: 1/5

Ingredient Availability: 5/5

Fried chicken is something almost all of us can appreciate. I feel like most of the time, making it at home doesn’t quite live up or compare to the restaurants. I’ve tried a fair share of fried chicken recipes and haven’t found one that I’d consider making consistently. That’s really something that I’ve come to look for when reviewing these recipes. A good recipe should be one that instantly pops into mind when thinking about making that thing. This recipe seems a little odd, calling for orange peel and potato chips. Do those additions make or break this recipe?

Key Ingredients and Omissions:

As I mentioned earlier, this recipe calls for an orange peel and potato chips. These are really unique for a fried chicken recipe, so I think they should be used to get the full effect of the recipe. Other than those two things, the recipe is fairly standard as far as fried chicken recipes go. (I forgot to take a picture of the coating ingredients).

Tools:

• Dutch oven or other frying vessel

Cooking Review:

Brine: 15 minutes

To make the brine, some water is heated to a boil before salt, sugar, pepper flakes, bay leaves, and an orange peel is added. This mixture is then stirred just until the salt and sugar are dissolved. Once removed from the heat, the brine is left to cool before being poured over the chicken wings. I let mine cool for about two hours. Initially, I wasn’t sure if there was a point in heating the water, as the salt and sugar would dissolve anyway. However, I think the hear probably brought out more of the flavors from the orange peel and possibly the pepper flakes.

Coating: 1 hour 5 minutes

After removing the chicken wings from the brine, I pat dry them and set them aside as I mixed the dry ingredients for the chicken coating. After whisking everything together, I poured the buttermilk in a separate bowl, setting up my breading station with an empty sheet pan at the end. I will note that I didn’t quite have enough garlic powder for the total 2 tsp (I had about 1 tsp). I then Coated each piece of chicken by dipping them into the buttermilk followed by a dredge in the dry mixture before arranging on the baking sheet. Once all the chicken was coated, I let it sit/dry for 40 minutes before frying. This step took a little longer as I had to wait for the oil to come up to temperature before starting to fry.

Frying: 46 minutes in 5 batches

The frying step was pretty straight forward. I fried my chicken in batches of 3 up until the last batch of 2 pieces. For each batch, side one was cooked for about 4 minutes before flipping and cooking for another 4 minutes. After each batch, the chicken was sprinkled with some salt as it sat on a cooling rack.

Analysis:

I’m not sure if the potato chips really added any crispiness or if it was just the combination of the flour and cornmeal that made these wings the perfect level of crispy and crunchy. At the same time, these wings were some of the juiciest wings I can remember having, bursting with flavorful juice. I could definitely taste the flavors that the orang peel provided in the brining step and I think it complimented the rest of the flavors nicely. Despite me not having all the garlic powder that the recipe called for, these wings were seasoned nearly perfectly. I don’t think it really needs any more garlic powder, but this could also be because some of the oil I used came from making roasted garlic, so this may have made up for that. Every now and then I noticed a slight hint of spice, but it was never anything substantial, which I have no problem with. I honestly think that this is the best fried chicken that I’ve ever made. Although I didn’t quite make this recipe exactly how it was written (using less garlic powder and using some roasted garlic oil), I doubt it would be much different if made as written. I’m giving this recipe a 10/10. It’s easy and delicious. I think this’ll be my go to fried chicken recipe.