All posts tagged: buttermilk

Suya Popcorn Chicken

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What to do with suya spice? That was the question. After all the sweat and grind trying to find the ingredients, I wasn’t really feeling a ‘suya kebab’, as I decided to call them. I’m also trying to stave off red meat. Except lamb, she says in her head. Clearly still a big struggle for me. So I hunted around the internet and found this fun recipe by Ajoke - Suya Popcorn Chicken. I have adapted Ajoke’s recipe a bit to bring out more of the crispy light texture we love from popcorn chicken. As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, the key to crispy chicken pieces, is not flour, or even the batter, its cornstarch. A little goes a long way (for more on the science of good fried chicken see here). So let me waste no more time, ladies and gentleman I present to you: Suya Popcorn Chicken!

Perfect Fried Chicken: The Science bit

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The days of munching on a bargain box of chicken and chips from KFC smothered in ketchup (I thought I was too sophisticated for the likes of Chicken Cottage or anything ‘cheaper’), are long behind me. But I still miss the crunchy coating and juicy chunks of white meat from that greasy cardboard box; I didn’t really care to know which 11 herbs and spices the Cornel chose to dunk and fry my precious chicken thighs in, I was just happy they bothered to season it at all. All these years I have been satisfied with, well good fried chicken that tasted amazing, but never had the KFC combination of crispy, juicy and finger lickin’ tasty…time and time again. Maybe that’ been your experience too: just how do they do it? Well I think I have the answer. Here’s the breakdown: Stage 1 - The Chicken: For this type of recipe, it makes more sense to avoid the chicken breast and wings; chicken breast has too little flavour and takes way too long to cook. While the wings have too little …

Red Hot Buffalo Chicken

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I’ve never seen a larger variety of Chicken. I’m use to the four options that you get at Nando’s which range from very hot to no heat, nothing more exciting than that, but this was different. I could see 6 varieties in front of me, but I had been told that there were over 50! From popcorn to boneless, and tenders to BBQ wings. This was not some upstage restaurant in Manhattan. No.This was Walmart in Montgomery, Alabama. I actually walked away from the Deli Bar with just the fried okra, but I was amazed at how serious southerners take their Chicken. So this recipe is dedicated to the short spell I spent in Alabama last year, it was an incredible experience for me (read more on my blog: http://www.acottonstateofmind.com). From what I gathered, Buffalo Chicken is usually served with celery sticks and a blue cheese sauce. I achieved the crispy texture by mixing Panko breadcrumbs with regular plain flour as the Panko breadcrumbs on their own tend to burn too quickly, long before the …

Crispy Cornbread Waffles

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When I was growing up, we had a large, cold, cupboard where we used to store dried peas, flour and rice, as these were stables in most of our cooking. Sometimes my mum would call me out of my day dreaming and ask me to go and fetch her the jar of Cornmeal which was stored in a large glass jar in this cupboard. In most cases it was to make cornmeal porridge which she’d mix with warm spices, a bay leaf and split with fresh milk for breakfast at the weekend. Oftentimes it formed cornmeal dumplings to add to the soup we traditionally shared as a family of six on Friday’s. Nowadays I use cornmeal for a variety of things: sometimes to add a crunchy texture to homemade burgers or breads. I also absolutely love it in Coo-coo (a dish I have yet to share on the blog…in time); as well as to make straight forward cornbread. Cornmeal flour comes in many textures, I tend to use the fine texture which still has a grittiness …