It is Day 20 of the Lockdown, I think. Not sure anymore because the days are all jumbled up and nothing makes sense anymore. If like me, you’re tired of everything in your fridge, here’s a fried chicken recipe from Chef Imoteda that will bring some memories of the outside. 

The first thing you need to do is brine your chicken. Brining your chicken is the probably the most important part of all of this. This is what makes your chicken juicy and flavorful. Unlike marinating, which focuses on the exterior, brining treats the “inside” of your chicken. Ideally, you want to brine chicken for 4 hours at the maximum. If you’re in a hurry, 30 minutes will do, but 4 hours is recommended.

To make the brine, you need:

• 600 ml of milk

• 2 tablespoons of garlic powder

• 1/4 cup of salt

• 1/8 cup of sugar 

• 1 teaspoon of dry pepper

• 2 inch piece of ginger, sliced

• 1 teaspoon of black pepper

• 3 tablespoons of vinegar

Mix all of this in a bowl and add your chicken to it. Keep in the fridge for 30mins - 4 hrs.

While your chicken is brining, you need to prepare a dredge. Dredging is a technique where you coat a wet food item with a dry ingredient, typically flour or breadcrumbs, before cooking it. In our case, the wet food item in the chicken brining in the fridge and the dry ingredient is the dredge you’re about to prepare.

To prepare your dredge, you need:

• 2 cups of flour 

• 2 tablespoons of garlic powder

• 1 tablespoon of salt

• 1 teaspoon of black pepper

• 1 teaspoon of dry pepper

When you’re done brining your chicken, you dip each piece of chicken in the dredge and place it on a wire rack. When dredging, make sure you get the coat in all nooks and crannies of that chicken. If you want extra crunchy chicken, I recommend you do a double dredge. To double dredge, you dip chicken back in your brine after your initial dredge to get it wet again. After doing this, you dip your chicken again in the dredge. 

When you’re done dredging, it’s time to fry that chicken. Heat up about a liter of oil in large sauce pan or deep fryer to roughly 350 degrees. To maintain temperature, fry two pieces of chicken at a time until the juices run clear when poked. 

You want to fry the chicken for about 10-12 minutes. Nothing beyond that or you’re going to burn the thing. 

While the chicken is frying, this is your chance to make the perfect side sauce for your fried chicken. You’ll need: 

• 2 tablespoons of chili flakes

• 5 cloves of garlic, sliced

• 1/2 a cup of honey

• 100g of butter

• 1 teaspoon of salt

Melt the butter in another pan add your sliced garlic cloves. Cook the garlic in the butter until browned. Then, add your honey and chili flakes. Stir thoroughly until it’s all combined and add the teaspoon of salt to taste.

Your fried chicken should be ready now, so put onto a plate and drizzle your honey garlic sauce all over it. 

It will look a bit like this when you’re all done