Tweaked twice fried chicken with spicy Maple glaze

Posted by petra08 on May 19, 2015 · 14 Comments 

Lately my mind has been occupied by opportunities and what to make of them. A few years ago I discovered that I love to make jams. There is something so soothing about preparing the fruit or berries and then watch them change in to a jam. The jams then became hot sauce and chutneys. Before I knew it, and many jars later I had developed quite a few products. More than anything I like to make hot sauce and I am always chasing new varieties of chillies to develop more flavours. I have a few different varieties growing in the greenhouse that I hope will come through.

 

I haven’t done anything with my produce, I mainly give it away and then we eat quite a lot of it. As I have given a lot away I now have two cafe’s/delis that have offered to sell it for me. I can’t make up my mind what to do. I am not set up for commercial trade even if the kitchen was done with that in mind. My biggest headache is if it will be worth while. Making the hot sauce takes time and the margins are small. Without more storage, time and a bottling machine I can’t make it profitable. I can’t make up my mind if I am trying to rationalize away an opportunity or being sensible. What do you think?

 

In order to have a proper think about this I decided to tweak a recipe. When I cook something I like I always see if I can tweak it somehow and make it even better. This time it was my twice fried chicken with a spicy Maple glaze.

I have re done this a few times with the cauliflower but never with the chicken. I didn’t change the recipe for the chicken, I was after the glaze. One time when I did it the glaze wasn’t hot enough so this time I played around a bit. This time I had chicken drumsticks to use up.

 

Twice fried chicken with a spicy Maple glaze

preparation time 15 minutes 

cooking time 25-30 minutes in total

serves 3

Ingredients

• 12 chicken drumsticks
• 2 dl or 1 cup corn or potato starch
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp Chinese five spice
• 1 piece of peeled, crushed and chopped ginger
• 2 tbsp buttermilk
• grapeseed or vegetable oil for frying

For the Maple glaze

• 1/2 dl or 1/4 cup Maple syrup
• 1 heaped tbsp brown sugar
• 4-5 chopped cloves of garlic
• crushed and chopped fresh ginger
• 2 dried chillies
• 1 Chipotle chile
• 1/2 dl or 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1 tbsp rice wine vinegar
• 1/2 dl or 1/4 cup water

Garnish

• 1/2 dl cashew nuts
• a good handful of chopped lemon thyme
• 1 tbsp sesame seeds

Mix the buttermilk with the five spice, ginger and salt. Mix with the chicken in a bowl and make sure everything is coated.

Place the corn flour in a bowl and cover the chicken pieces one by one. Rest them on a dry plat or chopping board until you are ready to fry them and make sure they don’t touch each other.

 

Drop the chicken pieces in the hot oil and let cook for about 10 minutes for each batch.

 

 

Once they are golden in colour remove them from the oil and let the fat drain off. Once you have cooked and drained the whole batch place all of the chicken back in the hot oil and let cook for 7-10 minutes.

 

Whilst that is cooking chop the dried chilli, seeds in, the chipotle, garlic and ginger. Heat the maple syrup, sugar, soy sauce and water in a pan with the rest of the ingredients until it is reduced to just about half.

 

Let the chicken drain and then pour the glaze over. Make sure everything is coated. Quickly fry the cashew nuts, drain and sprinkle over together with the sesame seeds and lemon thyme.

 

 

 

I think a mix of lemon thyme and coriander would be ideal for this dish. I didn’t have any coriander but lemon thyme worked a treat instead.

 

The chicken was cooked to perfection, it was crunchy and crispy on the outside and so juicy on the inside. I like chilli so I liked the extra heat from using the seeds and the smokiness from the chipotle with the sweetness from the Maple Syrup. I think I won’t need to tweak this any more but I am always open for new ideas!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Filed under Allotment/Veg, Chicken, Chilli, Garlic, Ginger, Herbs, Main course, Meat, Recipe, Snack, Starter · Tagged with crunchy chicken, fried chicken, maple glaze, Maple syrup, spicy maple glaze, sticky crunchy chicken, twice fried chicken