Nashville Hot Chicken
There are lots of stories about where this dish came from, but no one knows for sure. It started sometime in the 1930s, but people have been making it the same way for about 50 years. Nashville Hot Chicken is a spicy dish that was first made with chicken, using different cuts with or without bones. Sometimes, people even use fish instead of chicken. These days, you can find Hot Chicken at fast food places like KFC and in restaurants that focus on chicken dishes. There are many ways to make it, and this is my own version. Hot Chicken is often served as sandwiches, burgers, or wraps, and it usually comes with pickled cucumbers. The cucumber marinade is also a common ingredient in the chicken marinade.
Preparation time: 1 hour and 30 minutes, including marinating
Level: Rather easy
Quantity: For four
Ingredients:
500 g boneless chicken thighs
For marinating and making the sauce for the cucumber marinade
2-3 tbsp of any very spicy tomato sauce
Sea salt and black pepper to season
80 ml of fermented buttermilk for coating the chicken
3-4 tbsp of cucumber marinade
Flour for breading the chicken
Eating oil for frying
Sauce:
1 tsp paprika powder
0.5 tsp hot chili powder
1 tsp cayenne pepper powder
0.5 tsp garlic powder
50 ml of cooking oil
2 tbsp brown sugar
Preparation:
- Mix together the chicken marinade. Pour the spicy tomato sauce and cucumber marinade into a bowl.
- Cut the boneless chicken thighs in half lengthwise and mix with the marinade, and leave to marinate for 30 minutes.
- Mix together the breading mixtures. Pour the flour into a bowl and season it with sea salt and black pepper.
- In another bowl, mix together the fermented buttermilk and cucumber brine, and season with sea salt.
- Once the chicken has marinated, heat a 1.5 to 2 cm thick layer of oil in a pan over a slightly higher than medium heat.
- Bread the chicken. First, roll the chicken pieces in the flour, shake off the excess flour, and bread them in the buttermilk and cucumber marinade mixture and then in the flour again.
- Fry in batches so that the oil stays hot and the chicken breading doesn’t get soggy and stretchy.
- Place 4, maximum 5 chicken pieces in the pan and let them brown nicely on one side before turning to the other side. It takes 3-4 minutes to brown each side.
- Meanwhile, mix together the hot sauce. Mix together the paprika powder, cayenne pepper, hot chili, sugar, garlic powder, and oil. Mix well and set aside.
- Place all the fried or deep-fried chicken pieces in a bowl, add the hot sauce, and mix carefully.
- Serve the food immediately. It is most delicious immediately after frying, and then the breading is nicely crispy. Add pickled cucumber slices to serve. Serve with yogurt sauce, to make which mix a little cooking oil (olive oil) into the yogurt, add your favorite herbs such as thyme or oregano to the sauce, and season with black pepper and sea salt.
Hot chicken is usually served with white bread or burger buns.
Ready!!
