I don’t have junk food very often, and when I do I am always a bit disappointed. It really is quite easy to make at home and tastes much better, and you know what goes into it – there are no nasty chemicals or preservatives. I have always wondered what the secret herbs and spices are in KFC, and I set about attempting to make the best home-made fried chicken.
This is the recipe that I came up with and it was really really good – I would have liked a bit of chilli, so I have added chilli as an optional ingredient. You can use either whole pieces of chicken leg, thighs, wings or breast, or you can make nugget sized pieces. If you want to minimise the frying time, you can always poach the chicken in advance (poach it in a nice flavoursome stock), and then you just need to fry it until the batter is nicely brown.
This is enough batter to coat nuggets from 2 large chicken breasts – will serve 3 or 4 as a main course:
Half a cup of chickpea flour
1 cup of self raising flour
1 teaspoon of garlic salt
1 teaspoon of onion salt
1 teaspoon of powdered onion flakes
Half to 1 teaspoon of chilli or curry powder (optional – for the heat lovers)
1 1/2 tablespoons of caster sugar
Half a teaspoon of ground pepper
Half a teaspoon of smoky paprika
Half a teaspoon of cumin
Half a teaspoon of nutmeg
1 teaspoon of oregano
1 teaspoon of sage
1 teaspoon of thyme
1 teaspoon of ginger powder or grated fresh ginger
With the herbs you can use fresh or concentrate if you don’t have dried.
Method:
1. Mix all of the above ingredients together in a bowl.
2. Add 200mls of water (you can use cold soda water if you want a lighter batter). Mix well. The batter will be quite thick and gloopy – this is good as it will stick nicely to the chicken. It should be a thick dropping consistency so if you lift your spoon up it will slowly slide off the spoon. If it doesn’t slide at all, add a little more water.
3. Chop your chicken (raw or pre-poached) into the desired portion sizes.
4. Coat with batter.
5. Fry in approx 1-2 inches of hot oil – time depends on the size of the pieces. My nuggets took about 4-5 minutes. Turn frequently so that they cook evenly.
Serve with anything you like – I like the following options:
- salad
- corn
- peas
- home made potato wedges
- fresh mayonnaise
- tomato sauce
- chilli sauce
- chilli mayo
See my recipe for super quick mayo here
Truly Scrumptious 
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