Okay, after a week of intense scientific tinkering and experimentation I believe I have created something in the kitchen that gives you 95% of the taste satisfaction of KFC with only about 10% of the fat.

You have to try this.

The story…
Myself and my good friend Ryan used to love enjoying fried chicken together. Every week, we’d go and try a different fried chicken place in Manchester, after years of enjoyment we became veritable experts in fried chicken. We learned to understand every nuance of the mighty bird and knew exactly what we looking for in a good piece and where to get it. The ratio of coating to flesh, the crispness, the ideal consumption temperature… we understood it all, and really appreciated the art of frying chicken. It is undeniably one of the finest ways known to mankind of enjoying the succulent flesh of the chicken, and unfortunately one of the least healthy.

Then I started FlavourSmash, we couldn’t go and get chicken together any more, I got into staying in and cooking wondrous, flavour packed cuts of fish with crisp vegetable stir-fries etc… this wasn’t Ryan’s bag. He felt left out, it was damaging our long-running common interest, I felt bad. Then I hit upon the idea of starting a quest. A quest to create the same flavour experience without the fat or carbs, the ultimate, the fried chicken you can eat every night and not pack on the pounds and I believe we’ve made it.

Phase 1: Understanding Chicken
In order to create the ultimate FlavourSmash version of chicken we had to understand how to make normal full fat chicken. So we set to work. After reading many recipes online we got the idea behind cooking southern fried chicken. Covering the chicken in buttermilk, and coating in a flour mixed with herbs and spices then deep frying in groundnut oil. First of all we blended loads of the spices mentioned in the recipes, paprika, Szechuan pepper, celery salt, nutmeg, cayenne pepper, garlic salt.. the list goes on. We tried a few blends, mixed it with plain wheat flour and every time it tasted too weird. Too much going on. The key was more simple, more restrained, more subtle… Then we hit on it.

After 3 or 4 attempts, we tried using just salt and pepper and it gave the best results BY FAR! It was 90% there, bar a bit of subtlety in the exact blend. It turns out that the secret flavour was just SALT and PEPPER! That bloody Colonel, pretending that KFC contains a secret blend of 11 spices. It’s nonsense, the flavour is subtle, and really relies on the saltiness of the coating to make it so satisfying, the chicken flesh itself takes care of the rest of the experience. Chicken just tastes good coated in a crispy, salty and peppery coating. The key to this is that the fat is not the most essential ingredient in creating the taste experience. What we need is moist cooked chicken, a crispy coating and a weighty salt and pepper seasoning. This is something that can be achieved all within the concept of FlavourSmash.

Phase 2: Taking the Fat and Carbs Out
The next challenge was to remove the fat and carbs from the cooking process. The obvious choice for lowering the fat was to bake the chicken instead of frying it. To ensure the chicken cooks all the way through, I decided that we would boil it first. Boiling the chicken releases a lot of the fat, and also ensures the meat is kept moist since it’s constantly submerged in water. Boil a deep saucepan full of chicken legs for 30 mins and they will be cooked through fully. Leave aside to cool and prepare the spice blend. For this blend I used freshly ground black pepper and sea salt, and to cut the carbs right back I used soy flour instead of normal wheat, for added fibre and folic acid, a couple of tablespoons of wheatgerm was also added. This has less than half the carbs and tons of healthy proteins packed in to it. Mix a blend up of about 90% flour to 10% salt and pepper blend. Get your chicken legs and remove the skin. The skin is gorgeous and you can leave it on, but it harbours the most fat (even when boiled). I’ve found that you don’t miss it that much when removed, so lose it if you want the healthiest possible option.

I rolled the cooked chicken around in a tray of buttermilk (fat free natural yoghurt also works) and then rolled the pieces in the soy-flour-spice mix and baked it in a medium oven for about 15-20 mins.

I pulled the chicken out, let it cool for about 10 mins (remember, KFC chicken isn’t straight out of the fryer, it’s had time to cool so you can consume it in one delicious go), I tucked in. The taste was amazing. Just having a crust on the chicken is where the magic happens, the combination of moist chicken and warm salt and pepper crust creates the experience entirely, and remember this has no added fat. But it wasn’t quite there. The crust had become a bit too powdery. The flavour was there but the texture had become slightly too dry. I needed a way of lightly adding a tiny bit of grease to enhance the texture of the coating. Then I hit on it….

Phase 3: Innovating the magic
The key was in getting a touch of the groundnut oil flavour and its crisping qualities in to the coating. I wasn’t sure how to do this. I definitely didn’t want to deep or shallow fry. It had to be the lightest coating possible. I came up with an ingenious solution. I prepared the chicken pieces as above, but of instead of putting them straight into the oven, I prepared a pint glass of water. Into that glass of water I poured a small portion of groundnut oil on to the top, the oil sits on the top of the water and creates a layer. I then dipped the pre-coated chicken pieces all the way through the pint. This gently coats the meat with the slightest layer of oil. It barely penetrates the top of the crust, but it is just enough to create a delicious crispy coating when baked. This method causes a tiny fraction of the oil penetration that would be caused by deep frying.

I placed the pieces on a special baking tray with small holes in its base to ensure maximum heat and air circulation around the chicken, and the results were ASTOUNDING! Light, crispy, and with the exact flavour satisfaction of KFC! The soy flour is taking the carbs right down and the resulting chicken experience is almost indistinguishable from the colonel’s finest. A true triumph.

Phase 4: Further Enhancements
Once I had invented this breakthrough concept I experimented more the next day. Turns out, if you improve the blend with a spice mix as follows, you get even better results:

• 1/2 teaspoon Celery Salt
• 1/2 teaspoon regular Salt
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon Cayenne pepper

Mix all that with about 200 grams of soy flour, and you can add low-carb, fat-free colonel magic to anything you fancy (southern fried broccoli and courgettes are awesome) . Try it and let me know what you think!

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