Sweet Tea–Brined Fried Chicken Thighs

Ingredience

6 family-size or 24 single-cup black tea bags

½ cup sugar for brining

¼ cup table salt for brining

1 tablespoon grated lemon zest plus 3 tablespoons juice, plus lemon wedges for serving

8 (5- to 7-ounce) bone-in chicken thighs, trimmed

1½ cups all-purpose flour

1¼ cups cornstarch

1 tablespoon paprika

1 tablespoon granulated garlic

1 tablespoon pepper

2 teaspoons table salt

2teaspoons baking powder

¾ teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 cup buttermilk

3 quarts peanut or vegetable oil for frying

Pokyny

1. Bring 1 quart water to boil in medium saucepan over high heat. Off heat, add tea bags and steep for 5 minutes. Strain hot tea into large bowl, pressing gently on tea bags with back of spoon. Whisk in sugar, ¼ cup salt, and lemon zest and juice until salt and sugar are dissolved. Stir 1 quart ice water into tea until ice is melted and mixture is cold. Submerge chicken in brine, cover, and refrigerate for at least 12 hours or up to 48 hours.

2. Drain chicken in colander. Whisk flour, cornstarch, paprika, garlic, pepper, salt, baking powder, and cayenne together in large bowl. Add 3 tablespoons water to flour mixture; using your fingers, rub flour mixture and water together until water is evenly incorporated and shaggy pieces of dough form. Add buttermilk to medium bowl.

3. Set wire rack in rimmed baking sheet. Working with 1 piece at a time, add chicken to buttermilk and turn to coat; remove chicken from buttermilk, letting excess drip off; dredge chicken in flour mixture, pressing to adhere; and transfer to prepared rack, skin side up. Refrigerate chicken, uncovered, for at least 30 minutes or up to 2 hours.

4. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 300 degrees. Set second wire rack in second rimmed baking sheet and line with triple layer of paper towels. Add oil to large Dutch oven until it measures 2 inches deep and heat over medium-high heat to 325 degrees. Add half of chicken to pot and fry until dark golden brown and crisp, about 10 minutes, flipping once halfway through frying. (Adjust burner, if necessary, to maintain oil temperature between 300 and 325 degrees.) Transfer chicken to paper towel–lined rack. Return oil to 325 degrees and repeat with remaining chicken.

5. Discard paper towels and bake chicken until it registers at least 175 degrees, 10 to 14 minutes. Transfer to paper towel–lined serving platter. Let chicken cool for at least 10 minutes. Serve with lemon wedges.

Poznámky

Use a Dutch oven that holds 6 quarts or more for this recipe. We developed this recipe using Lipton tea bags. This fried chicken is very flavorful after 12 hours of brining, but if you have the time, you can brine it for up to 48 hours. The longer it brines, the more the tea flavor will come through.

WHY THIS RECIPE WORKS Inspired by Chef John Fleer’s recipe in The Blackberry Farm Cookbook: Four Seasons of Great Food and the Good Life (2009), this dish combines two of the South’s best-known culinary icons. Fleer favors dark meat for fried chicken, so we turned to bone-in chicken thighs, which we brined in a mixture of strong black tea, sugar, salt, and lemon. This ensured that the tea’s subtle aromatic flavor came through when the chicken was cooked. A quick dip in buttermilk before dredging in a seasoned mix of flour and cornstarch helped create a substantial coating that fried up crunchy and crispy. Because the increased sugar content of the brine caused the chicken to brown quickly, we heated our frying oil to a relatively low 325 degrees and pulled the pieces out when they were perfectly golden brown, then finished cooking them in a low oven. It’s a flavor match made in heaven—or rather, in Tennessee.