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Sous Vide Fried Chicken

Golden crispy fried chicken on the outside that is juicy, tender and thoroughly cooked on the inside.
Print Recipe
Cook Time 30 minutes
Sous Vide Time 2 hours
Course: Main Course, meat
Cuisine: American
Ingredients Equipment Method Notes

Ingredients
  

Sous Vide
  • 1 chicken cut into 8 pieces or chicken pieces
  • 2 cloves of garlic finely minced and carmelized
  • 4 sprigs thyme
  • Kosher Salt
  • Pepper
  • Vegetable oil for frying
Chicken batter
  • 1 ½ cups pastry or cake flour can be self-raising flour
  • 3 tsp salt or 2 tsp salt if using self-raising pastry flour
  • ½ tsp pepper
  • 3 tsp paprika
  • 4 tsp onion powder
  • 1 tsp garlic powder
  • 2 cups milk or buttermilk
  • ½ tsp cayenne pepper to taste

Equipment

  • Small cooler – the small one – the one that is too small to hold beer – “THAT” cooler (preferably one that has spout on the bottom)
  • Instant read thermometer
  • Electric water kettle or large pot to boil water
  • Large freezer bag(s)
  • Deep frying pan

Method
 

Sous Vide - gentle low temperature cooking
  1. Fill cooler about half full (smaller coolers are best) to 145-150F warm water
  2. Cut chicken up into pieces – drumsticks, thighs, breasts into two pieces, wings.
  3. Season chicken with 4 springs of thyme, garlic, and generous kosher salt and pepper.
  4. Place chicken into large freezer bag and partially close the zipper and press air out.
  5. Place the bag in the water with the opening on top to finish pressing the air out of the bag and seal.
  6. Place sealed freezer bag opening over the edge of the cooler ensuring the chicken is essentially submerged into the water.
  7. Allow chicken to “cook” for 1.5 to 3 hours in the cooler. With the cooler essentially closed, you will need to increase the heat of the water to ~145F once or twice. For this, I’ll boil water, drain off some of the water in the cooler and top off with some piping hot water.
  8. Once the chicken reaches 145F for 20 minutes, the chicken is cooked. For more information on chicken food safety https://www.seriouseats.com/2015/07/the-food-lab-complete-guide-to-sous-vide-chicken-breast.html#safe
Chicken Fry Time
  1. In a shallow pan, heat oil for frying to 400F
  2. Place dry ingredients into a deep rimmed bowl
  3. Place milk into another deep rimmed bowl
  4. Remove chicken from the freezer bag, dredge in flour and allow floured chicken to sit in milk for one minute. Then dredge back into flour.
  5. Place dredged chicken into hot oil and keep oil temperature at 375F. Cook 2-3 pieces of chicken at a time.
  6. Since the chicken is cooked (winner winner, chicken dinner!), flip chicken in the hot oil when the batter is lightly brown and to colour.
  7. Once chicken is fully brown, move onto wire rack.

Notes

SmellaQue Tip: Two sets of tongs are great to keep your hands clean during the dredging and frying process – one set for dredging, the other set to pull the chicken out of the hot oil.  Goodbye goopy batter hands!