Iced tea fried chicken and sharp coleslaw
I have a love/hate relation with fried chicken. When it’s good, it’s amazing. When it’s bad it’s terrible, and no matter how good it is it is still absolutely terrible for you, so if you’re going to make it, make it brilliant and make it rarely. You’re going to deep fry it so don’t skimp on the sugar and spices, just eat it less often. Along with a splash of a good vinegar based habinaro hot sauce a good coleslaw is a great accompaniment. Most coleslaw is over sloppy, bland and dull. I’m rather proud of mine, because it’s none of those things.
I first read about brining chicken iced tea on Helen Graves amazing blog which I can’t recommend enough.
You will need
For the friend chicken
- Chicken potions, bone in, skin on. I used thighs.
- Enough iced tea to cover the chicken
- A couple of peaches (sliced)
- A couple of teabags
- A table spoon of plain flower
- A heaped teaspoon of paprika
- A heaped teaspoon of ground black pepper
- A hefty pinch of powered garlic
- Another hefty pinch of salt
- A couple of litres of vegetable oil
For the coleslaw
- Half a hard white cabbage
- a couple of carrots
- a sharp green apple
- Equal amounts of natural yoghurt and mayonaise
- Zest and juice of a lime
- Fresh ground pepper
- A good pinch of flaky salt
Do
- Mix tea, peaches, salt and teabags.
- Cover the chicken with this mix and leave for 12 hours
- Drain the chicken and pat dry
- Mix flour, paprika, garlic, pepper and salt.
- Bring the oil up to scorching hot. I wish I could tell you how hot but I didn’t check.
- Add the chicken, make sure you’ve plenty of room for the oil to boil and not spill over.
- Deep fry for about 20 minutes
- Drain and dry the chicken. Cut through the thickest part of one piece of chicken to check it’s cooked. If needed bang it all in the oven to finish off.
- Mix yogurt, mayo, lime juice, lime zest and pepper
- Whilst the chicken fries fine slice the cabbage, grate the apple and carrot.
- Mix and refrigerate.
Results
Crisp skin, succulent fresh, spicy coating, all offset by the sharp yet creamy coleslaw.
