When i dip, you dip, we dip




Nashville Hot Chicken - Dip Style


The biggest craze around right now… Nashville Hot Chicken… as if fried chicken wasn’t already the greatest food known to man. For those of you that have never heard of hot chicken, here’s a little history lesson:

The story goes, the creator of hot chicken ALLEGEDLY was a womanizer, and ALLEGEDLY one morning after a late night out with his mistress, the wife wanted some revenge so cooked up some fried chicken but added a large amount of spice to it… Of course he ended up loving it and spread it throughout the world and now it’s landed in the Dip’s kitchen.

Hot Chicken has been a staple here in Nashville for years, and there are some delicious places serving it up from the original Princes to newcomers like Big Shakes out in Franklin. It seems like a new one opens up every couple of weeks….. but they all about to close down because ya boy done did it this time…

A hot spot for chicken in the Midtown area, Hattie B’s, posted their seasoning recipe online and of course I put my own spin on it. My family ate it three times this weekend, so I’d say this one is going to turn into a main stay.

The ReciDip:

Meat:

  • 3 LB’s Boneless Skinless Chicken Thighs
  • 3 Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts (sliced into tenders)
  • Little note: I don’t normally buy the pre packaged chicken tenders at the grocery store because they almost always have that real tough white tendon in them.


Seasoning:

  • 3-5 Tablespoons of Cayenne
  • I used 4 tablespoons (turned out to be a medium heat level)
  • ½ TBSP of Sriracha seasoning
  • 1 TBSP Light Brown Sugar
  • 1 TBSP Sea Salt
  • 1 TSP Black Pepper
  • ½ TSP of Paprika
  • ½ TSP of Garlic Powder


Brine:

  • Milk to Cover Chicken
  • 2 TBSP Sriracha Sauce
  • Additional Serving of the Seasoning mixture


Dry Dredge:

  • 2-3 Cups AP Flour
  • 1 TBSP Sea Salt
  • 1 TSP Black Pepper


Wet Dredge:

  • 4 Eggs
  • 1 ½ TBSP Hot Sauce (I used Tabasco)


Miscellaneous:

  • 1 Package Hawaiian Rolls
  • 1 gallon vegetable oil
  • Mayo
  • Tomatoes
  • Lettuce


There is one key difference between the way I did this and most people I’ve seen, the brine. Personally, I believe any sort of meat should be pre-flavorized (hell yes that's a real word) before seasoning and eventually cooking. Most people will do a simple dry brine (S & P overnight) for their hot chicken, but I ain’t no basic Dip.

So I started this recipe off by putting all of the chicken in a 2.5 gallon Ziploc and covering with milk. Next, I added the sriracha sauce, zipped up the bag and tossed it all around to coat. I let it sit in the fridge over night.

A few hours before I was ready to fry I took the chicken out of the fridge, and drained the milk mixture. Now I added in the entire spice mixture, zipped the bag back up and tossed it to coat. The chicken will sit like this until you are ready to fry.










When you are ready to begin frying, first you want to heat up the oil, I have a deep fryer so I just set the temperature to 350 and let it warm up…

Simultaneously… Almost everyone has their own way of frying but I always double dip… Take the chicken out and put it in a plate with flour, coat the chicken with the flour, next dip the chicken into the egg and hot sauce mixture, finally add the chicken into a bag with the dry dredge mixture and toss to coat. Repeat.

Once the deep fryer is ready, place the chicken in the fryer but DO NOT OVERCROWD. This could cause spillage and/or the chicken won’t cook evenly. I could only put three pieces per batch, so you can imagine the time it took to cook roughly 4 pounds of chicken. It will take about 10-12 minutes on 350 to cook the chicken.

While the chicken is cooking, combine all the seasonings into a heat proof bowl, and cut the Hawaiian rolls in half butter them up and grill/broil them (I grilled simply because I just got done grilling pizzas).

Now comes the fun part – making it Nashville Hot chicken.

When the chicken is done take it out of the fryer and put it on a wire drying rack. Take a cup and a quarter of the hot oil (be really careful) and dump it over the seasonings in the heat proof bowl. Take a fork and mix really well. From here you’ve got your hot chicken sauce:










Now just take a brush and apply a generous portion of SAUS to both sides of the chicken, because everyone knows "what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander" shoutout my boy Adam Ozier. There you have it, Nashville Hot Chicken.












Since I had a lot of people over I figured having the option for a sandwich would cut the heat for some weaklings, whose identities will be kept secret so as to not shame them in front of the Nation.













Yes this is a timely process, but damn is it worth it. Again, I kept mine to about a medium heat, but you can add as much cayenne (or whatever other pepper) as you think you can handle. Just be careful, we’ve all thought we could handle the hottest of hot chicken before, and we’ve all regretted it afterwards. There is no going back…

From my Nation to yours, hope you enjoy a little bit of my hometown.

#Dantnation

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