Steve Younes shared his team’s hot chicken recipe that won the amateur cooking contest at the 2018 Nashville Hot Chicken Festival. (see recipe below) The 13th Annual Music City Hot Chicken Festival is a free event held July 4th from 11am–3pm in East Park at 700 Woodland Street. The Fire Truck Parade begins at 10:30am followed by free hot chicken samples to the first 500 people in line. Festival-goers can enjoy Hot Chicken from Nashville’s best Hot Chicken establishments, live music from local bands, cold beer from Yazoo and other delicious edibles from local vendors. Also, look on while five teams try their hand at cooking up their version of Hot Chicken in the Amateur Cooking Competition. For more information, go to https://hot-chicken.com/festival/#.XRtd6ehKi70.
Big Steve and the Hot Chickadees Hot Chicken Recipe:
| Ingredients: | | | |
| 2-3 lbs of Chicken, (preferably bone in thighs) | | Sauce: | |
| Peanut or Vegetable oil | | 5 tbsp of cayenne pepper | |
| Bacon drippings (as much as you can get) | | 1-2 tbsp of habanero pepper | |
| Pickle Juice (as much as you can get) | | 2 tbsp of smoked paprika | |
| 2 cups of flour | | 2 tbsp of brown sugar | |
| ¼ cup of hot sauce | | 1 tbsp of chili powder (Breaking Bad homage) | |
| 2 tbsp of smoked paprika | | 1 tbsp of secret ingredients … | |
| 1 tbsp of salt/pepper | | 1 tbsp of salt/pepper | |
*1-2 tbsp of scorpion, ghost, or Carolina reaper peppers. |
Prep
- Preferably the day before, put your chicken in a Ziplock bag with pickle juice, hot sauce of choice and salt. This brine will allow your chicken to remain juicy, while infusing it with heat.
Cooking
- Transfer the chicken from the bag to a plate and try to let the chicken get closer to room temperature, preferably 10-15 minutes before you intend on cooking your chicken.
- Mix together the flour, paprika, salt and pepper thoroughly before we start to coat our chicken.
- When ready we will then begin to work the chicken into the flour and transferring the piece of coated chicken to a cleat plate.
Pro tip: Make sure to remove any loose pieces of flour as possible so this does not flake off during cooking. Next if you have the time and fridge space transfer to the fridge for 5 minutes. This will allow the flour to begin to gum up slightly and allow for crispy chicken I find.
- Begin to heat your oil so the oils temperature is between 350-375, the temperature will likely drop when you put in the chicken, so it is good to usually run a little higher.
- Next begin working your chicken in shifts into the deep fryer. Typically, I will par cook my chicken in shifts to allow it to get a second fry to both get crispy and for consistency.
- Pull your chicken when it reaches 165 and has a nice golden-brown color like a KFC commercial.
Sauce
- Combine the above dry ingredients for the sauce and mix thoroughly.
- Using either bacon drippings, if available, or cooking oil from the fryer combine ¼ cup of the oil to the dry spices and mix. Add oil or spices as needed to meet desired heat outcome.
Finishing
- Transfer the fried chicken to the bowl that the sauce was prepared in and toss to fully coat.
- Once properly coated place two pieces of good ol’ white bread down on a plate and place the chicken on top. Next drizzle on additional sauce as needed so the bread is EXTRA SAUCY and top with two pickles and pair with ranch or other accoutrements as desired or needed.
