I was sitting around and thinking to myself the other day, "Ya know, I enjoy a great chicken curry soup recipe and have several of my own, but what about a curry flavored crispy fried chicken? That has to be a thing, eh" Well, I jumped online and perused the web only to find a few weak ass attempts at what I had already drawn up my head as the next best thing since Nashville Hot Chicken. I knew I had to be the one to figure out such a simple concept but make it extra delicious and my own, so with a few different fried chicken recipes swirling in my head mixed with culinary genius I developed today's recipe, Crispy Curry Chicken with Red Curry Dipping Sauce! This one is for all you Asian Fried Chicken fans out there so if you're ready to walk down the dark lit curry fried chicken alley of Flavortown follow me into the unknown...Let's Get Cooking!
Be aware that this recipe is essentialy a two day process. You could skip the brining process and go for it, but don't complain when your chicken is dry and tasteless. Now that we have weeded out the few extra lazy and in a mega hurry people, there are two main steps to accomplish the night before you want to make this Crispy Curry Chicken. First, we need to make the dipping sauce so it has time to develop and actually taste better than dumping a few ingredients together and hoping for the best, and secondly, we need to brine the chicken for a little more flavor and guarnateed juiciness!
Let's start by making the Red Curry Dipping Sauce. In a small bowl, combine the red curry paste, sugar, and rice vinegar and mixing well until the paste is thinned out somewhat and sugar evenly distributed. Now add the mayonnaise and stir until everything is well mixed and homogenous. Simply cover this up and place it in the fridge to develop and enhance those curry flavors overnight.
Now, for the chicken, we are going to use a faily standard brine mixture that helps ensure juicy white meat chicken once fried and also brings another level of curry flavor to truly fortify what we are trying to accomplish in terms of taste and texture. Combine the buttermilk, pickle juice, and a couple tablespoons of dry curry powder and mix well. Pour this over your chicken tenders in a ziplock bag, bowl, or small brining bucket. I'm using tenders for this particular batch, but you could obviously use chicken thighs or even pound some chicken breasts flat like schnitzel. The key is somewhat thin pieces of chicken so it gets cooked before our breading burns, make sense? Anyway, cover your chicken and brine and refrigerate overnight for best results.
So it's now the next day and time to fry up some curry chicken, eh? Let's start by setting up our dredging station. The first container on your far left should be the brined chicken. There is no need to drain or do anything but set it on the counter. Next, crack some eggs into a second container/tray and mix them well. Finally, to the right of the eggs should be a tray of corn starch, rice flour, panko, and some more dry curry powder, mixed together as well. You may be wondering why we are mixing the panko with the dry seasoning but don't worry. In fact, you could make the panko a final tray and double back to the eggs before dipping in the panko but it is unneccessary. Adding the panko to the rice flour and corn starch as one final coating makes for a thin, but extra crispy layer without being overly breaded. We want to taste the chicken mostly and just have enough coating for that crispy crunchy bite when we dig in, eh?
Once the dredging station is set up and ready, use tongs to grab a tender and transfer to the eggs. Stir it around and flip so that the eggs coat the chicken all over and move it to the final breading tray. Tongs or fingers work here, but make sure each piece is completely covered and breaded before resting on a wire rack while you finish preparing the rest of the chicken. You should probably start heating your cooking oil to 350 degrees Fahrenheit while you knock out this step since it takes a few minutes depending on what size batch you are preparing.
Once all your chicken is coated and the oil is up to temperaure, drop 4 or 5 pieces at a time, in batches, and cook for 5 to 6 minutes until the chicken begins to float, turns golden brown and delicious, and the internal temperature reaches 165 degrees.
Like any other time you are frying chicken, transfer the cooked pieces to a wire rack to drain and cool. Feel free to give the chicken a light dusting of salt and/or curry powder when it is fresh out of the oil for a final seasoning, but between the brine and breading it should be good to go as is so give a quick taste test and determine what flavor level you want your final chicken.
And just as simple as it sounds, that's it! Serve your Crispy Curry Chicken hot out of the fryer with the Red Curry Dipping Sauce and dig in! You could serve this as an appetizer or snack, but I'm going to classify it as a Main Dish so no matter which cut of chicken you use, you can enjoy it as is or on a bun as the star attraction of the meal! The chicken itself is nice itself, light, tender, and juicy with a good curry flavor, but give it a little dip in that sauce and you are suddenly lighting up that dark alley of Flavortown and dancing a crispy chicken jig down the sidewalk! This is another example of one of those recipes where you can combine a few simple ingredients with a little culinary thought and planning to create something like no other before, so if you like what I made here be sure to hit me up on social media with a shoutout as you enjoy your Crispy Curry Chicken with Red Curry Dipping Sauce....Just Keep Cooking!
CRISPY CURRY CHICKEN WITH RED CURRY DIPPING SAUCE
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