Arkansas · Main
Arkansas Fried Chicken and Waffles
- Intermediate
- 2 h
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
Leads with richness that coats and comforts, a sweet edge rounding the corners, with warmth in the tail.
Ingredients
- 8 chicken thighs
- 500ml buttermilk
- 2 tbsp hot sauce
- 300g flour
- 2 tbsp salt, 1 tbsp pepper, 1 tsp cayenne, 1 tsp paprika
- Oil for frying
- For the waffles: 250g flour, 2 tsp baking powder, 1 tbsp sugar, 1/2 tsp salt, 2 eggs, 400ml buttermilk, 85g butter melted
- Maple syrup and hot honey
Equipment
Thermometer · Deep-fry pot · Waffle iron
The skills inside
Brining & curingThe coat before the fry: dredge, crumb, batter
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · dairy · egg
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Brine the chicken in buttermilk and hot sauce 4 hours. Dredge in seasoned flour, rest, and fry at 165C for 14-16 min until deep gold and 74C internal. 240 min
- Whisk the waffle dry ingredients. Separately whisk eggs, buttermilk, and melted butter, then combine lightly.
- Cook the waffles in a hot iron until crisp and golden.
- Set a piece of fried chicken on each waffle.
- Drizzle with maple syrup and hot honey and serve at once.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
The coat before the fry: dredge, crumb, batter 80 recipes
- The coat is continuous before it goes anywhere near the fat: held up to the light, no bare patch of food shows through anywhere, seams and thin edges included.
- It is bonded rather than resting on top: a gentle shake sheds loose dust only, and the coat does not slide off as a sheet when the piece is handled.
- It bubbles hard and steadily from the moment it enters the fat, and the bubbling visibly slows as it finishes; those bubbles are the surface water leaving, and a quiet entry means the fat is too cool.
- Out and drained, it is an even gold-brown all over and it is still crisp several minutes later on a rack; a coat that softens within a minute of coming out never lost its water.
- Broken open, there is no paste of raw flour under the crust and no hollow gap where the coat has lifted away from the food.
Where it goes wrong The fat was below temperature or the pan was crowded, so the coat drank fat instead of sealing against it: it comes out pale and heavy, greasy to the fingers, and slumps off the food as it cools.
Brining & curing 88 recipes
- Fully committed either way: in a wet brine nothing floats clear of the liquid, and in a dry cure every face carries salt, seams and cavities included.
- The time was measured against the weight and the thickness rather than the recipe’s convenience, and it stayed cold for all of it.
- The change is visible and can be felt: the flesh is firmer than raw and its colour has deepened or gone more translucent, rather than still being slack and pale.
- Rinsed and dried as the recipe asks, and anything meant to crisp afterwards has a surface dry and tacky to the touch before it goes near heat.
- Cooked and tasted, it is seasoned right through to the centre rather than merely salty at the surface, and not so salty that the dish cannot be eaten.
Where it goes wrong It sat in the brine well past its time because a few extra hours seemed harmless; the surface is over-salted and the texture has gone from firm to spongy and wet, and no cooking takes salt back out.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Chardonnay (village Burgundy)
- Also Right
- Chianti or Barbera
- From the Taps
- Bière de garde
- Zero-Proof
- Verbena iced tea
Chicken is wine’s most agreeable partner. Match the SAUCE, not the bird: cream to oak, tomato to Sangiovese’s acid, herbs to Loire whites.
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