3 Reasons THAI FRIED CHICKEN is the Best in the World

So at welcome to Thai kitchen .

So I come from a town in southern Thailand called , which is famous for our fried chicken .

Now , I have had fried chicken from all over the world and still to this day , I believe that fried chicken is the best ever .

It's so good that it's now made all over the country .

And la's Thailand even came out with a fried chicken flavored chips .

So you know , it's gotta be good .

Now , I know that some of you already writing in the comments telling me about some other chicken that you think is better , but I am here to prove my case and I'm gonna show you three reasons why fried chicken or I'm gonna call them Thai fried chicken because it's all over the country now is the best .

And of course , I'll show you how to make it so you can experience it for yourself and know that I'm right .

Let's get started .

Let's make the marinade .

This is the number one reason why this chicken is so amazing .

This combination of ingredients is unique and unlike any other chicken marinade I've ever had and it's magical starting with white peppercorns you can use black or a combination of black and white .

I'm gonna grind that up once that's fine .

I'm gonna follow it up with garlic and cilantro stems .

But use cilantro roots if you can get them .

And I'm gonna get that into a fine paste .

OK ?

Oh , that smells like Thai food already .

And these three ingredients are what we call or three friends .

And it's the base of so many meat marinades .

Now , the secret ingredient might be a little unexpected sugar .

The sweet salt combo is what makes this so addictive .

It's the reason why caramel and cheese popcorn is so addictive .

You know what I mean ?

And it's gonna be subtle but it makes all the difference .

And I like to grind the sugar into the herb paste like this , which helps break the herbs down further .

Now , the main seasoning soy sauce and for a truly authentic taste , you wanna use Thai soy sauce and of course a little bit of fish sauce .

What makes this marinade even better is that it's not just a marinade , it's also a brine .

I'm gonna add a whole bunch of water and , and this excess water is gonna get absorbed into the chicken making it juicy , but it's also gonna bring along the salt and the sugar , which means this chicken is going to be flavorful all the way through , not just outside on the crust .

Now , the chicken , I am only using drums , thighs and wings not breast because let's face it .

That's like the worst part of the chicken .

And also in Thailand , a lot of fried chicken don't sell fried chicken breast for that reason .

Now , I'm gonna show you a trick for prepping the chicken that I learned by watching a fried chicken vendor for the drums .

I'm gonna give it a score on the thickest part of the drum and that will help the marinade penetrate and also help it cook faster because this is super thick .

It'll take a long time , especially these North American chickens .

They are enormous .

I'm gonna do one on each side and that's it .

Now , the thighs , you wanna trim off any excess skin if there is any hanging .

Also , I wanna make a couple of score marks beside the bone because that's where the meat is the thickest and this part takes forever to cook .

So by evening it out a little bit , it will cook faster .

And this piece of skin I'm just gonna get rid of it because it'll just sort of float off and get in the way .

There you go .

That right there will save you a lot of trouble if you end up with one of these massive factory farmed American chicken thighs , what you can do is just trim it off a little bit , make it physically smaller and then fry that piece off as a snack because if you fry the whole thing that would take a super long time .

All right .

So these just go into a mixing bowl and pour the marinade over the chicken and that's it .

It's super easy .

You need at least four hours of marinating time to give it enough time for the brine to really penetrate through .

I like to do it the day before just to make it easy on myself .

But you do want to come back and give it a flip halfway through to make sure everything is evenly distributed .

So here's a chicken that I marinated yesterday .

Now , I like to bring it out at least 30 minutes before cooking .

So they're not so cold and they won't take so long to cook .

So while you are waiting for your chicken to come to room 10 , you should be making the second reason why fried chicken is the best in the world and that is the fried shallots .

So this is what makes fried chicken unique to this town .

The spices and the recipes for the marinade can vary from vendor to vendor , but everybody serves theirs with fried shallots .

These crispy sweet magical flavor flakes , take it to the next level .

Now you can buy these premade from the store , but they can be a little stale .

So what I recommend is bake them again in a 300 °F oven for about five minutes that will freshen them , get them crispier and so much better than straight out of the bag .

Just trust me .

That is my secret .

Ok ?

But if you want to make them , it's not hard , thinly and evenly sliced shallots .

Take your time here .

You want to make these as even as possible and toss them with a pinch of salt .

The salt seasons them and draws out some moisture which will make them crisp up faster .

After about 10 minutes , spread them out onto paper towel and pat them dry in the same oil that you will use to fry the chicken .

Add a piece of shallot and turn the heat on high and keep an eye on it .

Once that test piece has a constant stream of bubbles coming out , turn the heat down to low and then add the rest of the shallots , keep stirring them and frying them gently on low until they are golden and the bubbling has mostly subsided .

They will darken even more after they come out of the oil .

So keep that in mind , take them out sooner than you think , drain them , spread them onto paper towel to absorb excess oil .

And that is it .

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The last reason why these are the best fried chicken in the world is the crust .

Now , these don't have the chunky craggy crust like American fried chicken .

I will argue is more about the crust than it is about the chicken .

But because this chicken is so good , you want the chicken to be the star and the crust is just there to enhance it .

OK ?

And it makes it even easier because all we need to do is add some rice flour right into the marinade slash brine starting with about half a cup first and then give it a mix .

See , no dredging , no taking chicken out of the marinade .

I mean , this is better and easier .

This is a little thin .

So I'm gonna add a little bit more so I get more of a coating using your hands to mix with , make this easier .

So if you don't mind getting dirty , go for it .

All right .

So this is the texture that we're looking for , see how it's sort of thinly , but it's quite thoroughly coating the chicken .

That's what we want and think about this , the marinade is the batter .

So you can imagine how flavorful that crust is going to be .

Now for the oil , I'm heating it up to about 375 °F .

And when we put the chicken in , the temperature is going to drop to about 300 that's where we're gonna maintain it .

Time to fry too much talking .

There we go .

Ok .

I'm keeping the heat sort of medium low and I'm just monitoring the temper , careful um the temperature so that it's gonna sort of linger at about 300 .

So in the first minute or so it's just gonna continue to drop .

It's not dropping that much .

So , you know what I'm going to , we're frying these low temp ish because these are big chicken .

Right ?

And the marinade has sugar in it .

So , if you're frying it at high temp , they're gonna burn before they have time to cook through .

And the oil doesn't need to completely submerge everything we can come and give these a flip every so often .

We are frying these until they reach an internal temperature of 175 °F .

That may be higher than you think because 165 is when it stays to eat .

But with dark meat , if you take it only to 165 the meat will sort of still cling onto the bone a little bit and it might still look a little pink , which freaks people out at 175 and higher .

The meat actually releases cleanly from the bones to become more tender and it's just better overall .

Ok .

Look at this .

Oh my God .

They look perfect .

Nice .

And if you're wondering what all that sound is , that's the sound of the juice of the chicken that came out when I poked it to take a temperature because our chicken is extra juicy .

Remember ?

Yeah .

Look at this glorious nest and listen to this .

It's a thin crust , but it's a crisp crust and rice flour crisps up beautifully and it's lighter than an all purpose flour .

And that's why we use it and it makes it gluten free for all your gluten free friends .

Let's put it all together .

I'm gonna take a piece of chicken drumsticks .

My childhood favorite .

Some sticky rice is absolutely a classic .

You don't have to have it .

I mean , the chicken is pretty darn good with or without sticky rice .

But if you want to serve it authentically , Thai style and sticky rice is the way to go and then the fried shallots you can put on the chicken , but I like to put on the sticky rice .

All right .

Here we go .

I'm so excited .

Oh my God .

It's so juicy .

It's dripping .

It's literally , you see this , it's literally dripping juiciness .

I cannot explain to you the difference that brining makes and you can apply that technique to any fried chicken that you make .

OK , if you don't make fried chicken , make whatever chicken but brid it instead of just marinate and it makes all the difference .

Oh my God .

Hm .

Mm .

It's just light and crisp and the meat is so flavorful .

You can follow it up with the fried shallots .

Mm And it just added sweetness and crunchiness .

Stop the shell .

I am done .

Mm I really stand by this .

This is the best fried chicken you will ever have .

And if you want to prove me wrong , you just have to make it and then tell me that I'm wrong because you're gonna be blown away .

If you do it properly .

Don't not follow the recipe and then tell me that it's not good .

OK ?

Just , just gonna put it right there because you know who you are , make it see for yourself and let me know the recipe as always will be on hot kitchen dot com .

A special thanks to all of our Patreon supporters who helped support the show .

And if you want to know more about that , I'll put the link in the description below .

Thank you as always for watching and I will see you next time for your next delicious .

Hi .