Sweet-Tea Fried Chicken

Sweet-Tea Fried Chicken Recipe courtesy John T. Edge, Fried Chicken:
An American Story, Putnam 2004

Recipe Summary
Difficulty: Easy
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Inactive Prep Time: 52 hours
Cook Time: 1 hour
Yield: 8 servings
User Rating: No Rating

John Fleer is a thinking man's chef, a onetime doctoral candidate in
religion who chucked it all for a career in the kitchen. One of his
best ideas to spring from his mind is this brined chicken, which
manages to pay tribute to the traditional South of days past and the
multicultural South still on the horizon.


8 chicken leg quarters, cut into thighs and drumsticks
1 quart brewed tea, double strength
1 lemon, quartered
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup kosher salt
1 quart ice water
3 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups corn flour (or fish fry)
2 tablespoons crab boil seasoning (recommended: Old Bay)
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
8 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
Peanut oil


Combine tea, lemon, sugar and kosher salt, and simmer for 5 minutes
or salt and sugar are complete dissolved. Pour in ice water and cool
brine completely. Submerge thighs and drumsticks in brine for 48
hours.
Remove to a wire rack and allow chicken to drain. Combine 2 cups of
the flour and the corn flour, crab boil, chili powder, salt, and
pepper in a large bowl. Place remaining 1 cup flour in a medium
bowl, and in a third bowl beat eggs with buttermilk. Line up bowls
of flour, egg-buttermilk mixture and then the flour-corn flour
mixture, in that order. Coat the chicken in the flour, then the egg-
buttermilk mixture, and then the flour-corn flour mixture, applying
pressure to ensure even adherence. Let the chicken sit in the
refrigerator for 1/2 hour before frying.

Pour oil in a heavy pot at a depth of at least 3 inches. Heat oil to
300 degrees F. Fry chicken, submerged in oil, for 15 minutes, or
until an instant-read thermometer registers 170 degrees F for dark
meat, 160 degrees F for white meat. Drain on a rack. Cool to room
temperature, and then place in refrigerator for at least 4 and no
more than 24 hours. Serve cool from a picnic basket or cold,
straight from the refrigerator.