Cross Cultural Fried Chicken

The SEasOning

I like fried chicken. What’s not to love?

It’s crispy, salty, and packed with flavour. This is probably one of my favourite ways to eat chicken. Trinidad style fried chicken almost always starts with marinating in green seasoning, followed by an egg wash and a flour dredge before frying. I’ve even seen some people flavour their frying oil with hot pepper and garlic before frying the chicken for added flavour.

As a group of people, Trinidadians love chicken. In 2018, they had a per capita chicken consumption of 63.5kg. Aside from being delicious, Trinidad has a large Hindu and Muslim population, so beef and pork tend to take a back seat. Growing up in a Hindu household, beef and pork were meats I never ate. With chicken being the staple protein you’ve got to get creative in its preparation to keep yourself interested.

The other day I was watching Uncle Roger roasting Aunty Liz as she was making Ayam Goreng (Malysian style fried chicken) and I was struck by how similar the base seasoning were to Trini style curried chicken or any Caribbean style chicken dish. Onions, garlic, ginger and spices all formed the base for the marinade. I thought to myself there could be an interesting marriage of flavours here. Can we smash together South East Asian and Caribbean Flavours to make fried chicken?

The answer is yes – yes you can.

So this is my Cross Cultural Mash Up of Fried Chicken served two ways. One with curry and one with jerk.

Note: This is my first iteration of this recipe. So I’m sure I’ll end up refining it over time. Also I didn’t really measure anything. I just threw stuff together till it seemed like enough.

The Ingredients

• 1 large pack of boneless skinless chicken thighs (there was 10 in my pack, so they were split into two groups of 5)
• 1 medium yellow onion peeled and quartered
• 6 cloves of garlic peeled and smashed
• 1 medium knob of ginger peeled and sliced
• 1 green chili (or more if you want)
• 1 tsp whole cumin
• 1 tsp whole corriander
• 1 tsp whole fennel
• 1/2 tsp tumeric
• A bunch of curry leaves
• 1/2 cup coconut milk
• 1 tbsp Madras curry powder
• 1 tbsp Jamaican Jerk Seasoning
• 1 cup corn starch split into qty (2) 1/2 cup portions
• Salt and pepper to taste

The Method

1. Wash your chicken and trim off any excess fat and divide them into two portions inside a large freezer bag
2. In a small frying pan over medium heat, toast the cumin, coriander and fennel till aromatic. Cool and grind in a spice grinder. If you don’t have a spice grinder use a mortal and pestle. If you don’t have a mortar and pestle just leave them whole
3. In a blender add your onion, garlic, ginger, chili, ground spices, turmeric, curry leaves and 1/2 coconut milk. Blend until smooth. Taste and adjust seasoning with salt and pepper
4. Divide the marinade from the above step into two batches. In one batch, add your jerk seasoning and stir to combine. In the other, add the curry powder and stir to combine
5. Pour the marinades into the the respective bags of chicken from step 1, seal the bags, smush the chicken around so every square inch is covered in marinade and stick that in the fridge for 12-24 hours (or at least overnight)
6. In a frying vessel of you choice (sorry, an air fryer won’t work for this) heat your frying oil to 350F. You can either deep or shallow fry this
7. While the oil is heating take your chicken out of the fridge and empty it into a bowl.
8. Pour a 1/2 cup of corn starch over your chicken and mix it thoroughly. Make sure all the corn starch is covering the chicken and there are no dry spots. Let the chicken rest and come up to room temp.
9. Once the oil is at temp, fry in batches for 8-10 min. Don’t over crowd the pan with chicken. You don’t want the oil temp to drop too much.
10. When the chicken is cooked let it drain on a wire rack and immediately hit it with a little more salt and pepper. You can keep the chicken warm while the rest fries by placing it in your oven set to 190F