There are as many ways to make fried chicken as there are cooks making it; chicken maven and Top Chef alum Nicole Gomes offers some tips for frying it up yourself at home. It's not as scary as it sounds.

Dust Up: When coating your chicken, get creative with your flour mixture: add any dry spices your heart desires.Splatter Guard: Peanut oil is best for frying, and canola works well too. Use a deep pot—you’ll need a depth of only four inches at the most, but you don’t want to fry in a pot with the oil coming higher than a third up the side. A cooking temperature of 325˚F is ideal.Easy Does It: When it comes time to fry, don’t overcrowd your pot—cooking too many pieces at once will cause the temperature of the oil to drop, making your chicken greasy. Lower it in gently to prevent splashing and burning yourself. You’ll know it’s fully cooked when the temperature on a meat thermometer inserted in the thickest part of the meat, closest to the bone, reads 160˚F.Thrifty Foods: Reuse the leftover oil; once it has cooled completely, strain it through a fine sieve and store in a jar.

Recipes

Try Gomes’s fried chicken in person at Cluck ‘n’ Cleaver in Calgary or get recipes here from Julie Van Rosendaal for your own fried chicken, with cream biscuits, mustardy radish slaw, and creamed corn with bacon to go on the side.img_4387

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