Air Frying Class

Kyl Haselbauer has 20 years of experience working in fine-dining and modernist kitchens, including Bar Cotto and Anchovies &amp; Olives in Seattle. He is also the owner of Bright Spot, a café and coffee shop in Seattle.

Kyl Haselbauer

Everybody loves fried chicken, but no one loves frying.This is the dilemma for every home cook who craves juicy, tender, flavorful meat encased in a crispy, crunchy, golden-brown crust. But what if you could get nearly identical results without firing up a vat of hot oil? After a lot of testing and fiddling, and by taking into account an air fryer&#39;s strengths and weaknesses, we&#39;ve come up with an air-fried chicken that can go talon-to-talon with any fried chicken out there. It&#39;s got a crispy crust that stays crispy for hours, a slight sour tang from buttermilk, and tender, succulent, perfectly cooked meat. Since an air fryer excels at quickly and evenly cooking and crisping food, we knew that using a two-stage cooking method would be necessary: braise the chicken first, then somehow apply a crispy coating. But since an air fryer is so powerful, we knew that a traditional dredge or batter wouldn&#39;t fly; the starches in the dredge or batter wouldn&#39;t have enough time to gelatinize before the meat became overcooked and dry.We ended up using a combination of crushed up potato chips and ground, frozen curly fries, which we toast in the oven while the chicken goes through its initial braise. The starches in both pre-fried products are fully gelatinized, so all we had to do was make sure they stuck to the chicken (and a buttermilk dip took care of that); the air fryer&#39;s intense and even heat would take care of the rest.

Crispy and Crunchy Golden Air-Fried Chicken