Fried Chicken Sandwich with a Homemade Pretzel Bun
Woke up early this morning. Not sure at what point I got the idea to fry chicken for the first time, but for a couple weeks I’ve been thinking about trying to make soft pretzels. Eventually it occurred to me that I should combine the two ideas.
Defrosted a chicken breast, butterflied it, and pounded it a little thinner between two sheets of plastic wrap with a meat tenderizer. After that, prepped the buttermilk bath with paprika, garlic powder, black pepper, and salt*.
While I let the chicken marinate in the buttermilk mixture for two hours (in the fridge), I started in on the pretzel dough*. The most important step in the process, pre-bake, is boiling the dough in nine cups of water and a half cup of baking soda before putting in the oven. Also, baking the buns on cooking parchment, greased with cooking spray, kept the buns from burning on the bottom.
Once the pretzel buns were out oven the oven, I heated three cups of canola oil in a large pot, over medium heat. In the future, I’m going to keep the temp down on the oil. Got too hot, and fried the breading a little too fast.
To coat the chicken, I did the double dredge method. Took the meat out of the buttermilk mixture, put it in the breading, then back in the mixture, and then back in the breading. Made sure to coat the chicken evenly both times, with both the buttermilk mixture and breading.
Fried the chicken, and let it dry on a wire rack. Cut a pretzel bun in half, added the chicken, topped with romaine lettuce, and spread some ranch mixed with chipotle powder on the top half of the bun.
Make your own:
•Pretzel Dough*
•Fried Chicken Breast*
Recipes used in the meal above accompanied by an asterisk *.
