This week on dishes that I can’t use egg or milk on but I definitely cannot just search for a “vegan” substitute is…
Fried Chicken!
A little bit different from the breaded porkchops that used
panko/bread crumbs, this time I’m breading with flour. I don’t have a deep
fryer so instead of doing the true Southern deep-fried, bone in, skin on
chicken; I got chicken breasts that were so large they were possibly from a
chicken/dinosaur hybrid and I cut them down into manageable pieces to make a fried chicken cutlet situation.
My trials were based off two recipes: one Simple Fried Chicken Breasts that used nothing to bind the flour to the chicken. You just mix
the chicken in flour until it’s well coated and let it refrigerate for a few
hours. This seemed to be a rather optimistic endeavor. The other one was Chicken-Fried Chicken that used buttermilk before dredging in flour. I was
excited to try this because I have had my eye on some nondairy “buttermilk” at
the store.
Let’s just clear the air- neither one of these did great. I
blame my frying skills. I have fried things before, definitely. I do live in
the South. But it’s not something I’ve done a lot of. If I do fry, it’s usually
okra. Or fried green tomatoes.
What happened this time? It appears that the oil wasn’t hot
enough. What was strange was despite turning up the heat, the oil was never hot
enough. The burner was clearly hot. The pan was hot. The oil… appeared hot but
did not cook the chicken. Even the second batch turned out pale and sad! The
oil bubbled and sounded like it was working, but the chicken never approached anywhere in the vicinity of golden brown. But, let’s not be deterred. We can still learn some
things from my oil poached, barely coated, chicken breasts.
- Coating with flour and no binder did not add a lot of texture to the outside of the chicken. Not enough flour stuck to really make a breading and honestly the final product, while moist, would definitely not be considered a fried chicken anywhere in the country.
- The vegan buttermilk worked pretty well, and probably would have worked better if my oil was at an appropriate cooking temperature, instead of a tepid bathtub. Even though the color is off, in the photo you can actually see a crinkly, flour coating that stuck all the way around the chicken. Success! Or at least, partial success!
- The ingredients to the nondairy buttermilk are a mix of grain milks and some bacteria. In the future, instead of buying a jug I think I’ll mix up some oat milk and plain nondairy yogurt and use that instead. Cheaper and I’m not left over with extra vegan buttermilk. I guess I should make some… cornbread? Biscuits? Cake? The carton suggests smoothies and sauces. Maybe biscuits and gravy are in my future…
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