AirFryday: Southern fried chicken in your air fryer, two ways

Funny how the large print arrests your eye first. Of course it does; that’s how we’re primed, and those strange, invisible people who write the text for food packaging well know it.

So when I saw that the front of the packaging blared…

Minimum 7 PIECES

Pre-cooked

Individually frozen

High in protein

Bone-in

AIR FRYER

+- 18 min

… well, I popped it in the trolley, because I am here for my readers and their air fryers. You know you can count on me to be your personal guinea pig, if not quite like Marc Antony’s taster being instructed by Cleopatra to taste the wine containing poisoned flower petals. (He dropped dead on the spot.)

I won’t be going quite that far for you, but I am up for trailing a shop-bought pack of Southern fried chicken portions.

What do we want from this product? I think the answer is easy: we want it to taste like Kentucky Fried Chicken the first time we ate it in our youth. Whether or not we like it as much now (I haven’t had it in decades), that’s the one I remember.

The packaging instructs us to put it directly in a preheated air fryer from the freezer. The temperature must be 180°C and it must bake for 10 to 20 minutes, turning halfway.

But, removing the bag from the freezer before cooking them, I turned the package over and saw six veeeeeeeery long lines of tiny print of the “ingredients”. Luckily, I wasn’t able to read most of the words, which I suspect would have frightened me and possibly caused me to toss it out and order in actual Kentucky Fried Chicken instead.

On closer inspection, many of the words were the names of actual recognisable things, from chicken (66%), flour, herbs and garlic powder to vegetable oil (palm fruit) and cow’s milk. With a smattering of lots of scary numbers, stabilisers and enhancers. Old-school, in other words.

So I gave it a go, as follows, as per the packaging instructions:

Preheat oven to 180°C.

Place mixed portions on a preheated baking tray and cook in the oven for approximately 18 to 20 minutes, turning halfway through cooking time.

That’s it.

And… oh dear. This was not good at all. After 25 minutes of the recommended 20 to 25-minute cooking time at 180°C in an air fryer, the flesh was only warm, not hot at all. The texture of the chicken meat had deteriorated to a degree that was not pleasant to eat. A resounding fail. There’s no room for beating about the bush.

So, let’s move on: leave that in the freezer at your supermarket and go home and try my own recipe instead.

Dipped in buttermilk and then in spiced flour, this (my) recipe is for southern fried chicken, the well-seasoned, crunchy classic whose most famous incarnation is Kentucky Fried Chicken, the recipe for which, of course, is a secret.

Here’s some Southern comfort brought to you not by Colonel Sanders but courtesy of your air fryer. That’s right, we’ve adapted a good ole Southern family favourite for the electronic beast in your kitchen that you’ve been getting to know better lately.

It’s a fairly straightforward recipe. In one bowl, you whisk eggs and buttermilk together. In another, you mix flour and cornflour with a range of spices and dried herbs. The chicken portions get dipped into the liquid mixture first, then into the seasoned flour, and then they go right into your air fryer.

Tony’s Southern fried chicken, air fryer style

(Serves 4)

Ingredients

1 cup buttermilk

2 large eggs

4 chicken thighs and 4 chicken drumsticks

For the spice mix:

1 Tbsp paprika

1 Tbsp garlic powder

1 Tbsp onion powder or flakes

1 Tbsp salt

1 tsp fine black pepper

1 tsp mustard powder

1 tsp ground ginger

1 Tbsp dried Italian herbs

1 Tbsp dried oregano

Plus:

¾ cup cake flour

½ cup cornflour

Method

Whisk the eggs and buttermilk together in a bowl suitable for dipping the chicken portions in the mixture.

In another bowl, mix the flour and cornflour together, and stir in all the spice mix ingredients listed above.

Preheat the air fryer to 190℃ for 5 minutes.

Dip the chicken thighs into the buttermilk mixture first, then into the flour mixture, being sure to coat the portions thoroughly.

Spray the air fryer basket with olive oil spray, and place the thighs in the basket with space between them. Spray the upper side of the coated chicken portions in the air fryer generously with olive oil spray.

Air fry for 30 to 35 minutes at 190℃, turning halfway through and spraying with more cooking oil on the turned side.

Serve with a mound of Granny Betty’s air fryer chips. That’s Southern comfort. DM

Follow Tony Jackman on Instagram @tony_jackman_cooks.