Chicken and Waffles

Buttermilk-brined thighs, cornmeal waffles, hot honey butter

Time: 18 hr brine, 90 min active
Serves: 3 with leftovers
Region: American
Course: Mains

Sal's, and the lineage gets stated rather than absorbed. Chicken and waffles is Black American food. Harlem supper clubs in the thirties, Southern fry technique long before that. I was raised on Federal Hill, which is Sunday gravy and cavatelli, not this. What I have is ten years of Boston hotel brunch service where this ran every week at volume, so I know it as a cook who executed it, not one who inherited it. That's the honest line and it stays on the card. Everything below I'll stand behind. Two things carry the whole dish: pull the dark meat at 178, not 165, and keep every finished piece on a wire rack with air under it. The enemy is steam, not time.

How it's made

1Brine, Two Stages

Stage one is the part people skip, and it's why their chicken tastes seasoned on the outside only. Salt on bare meat overnight gets down into the muscle and dries the skin at the same time. The buttermilk after it is for tenderness and for giving the dredge something to grab. The sugar isn't for sweetness. It's for browning, and it ties the chicken to the syrup so the plate reads as one dish instead of two things touching.

18 hours out: salt the chicken directly, about 1 tsp Diamond Crystal kosher per pound. Half that if it's Morton, the crystals are denser.
Set it on a wire rack over a sheet pan, uncovered, in the fridge. Overnight.
6 hours out: mix 1 qt buttermilk, 1 Tbsp kosher salt, 1 Tbsp sugar, 2 Tbsp hot sauce, 1 tsp coarse black pepper.
Submerge the chicken and back into the fridge.
Short on time, run the buttermilk only, 12 hours minimum. It's good. It isn't the best.

2The Dredge

Cornstarch is what makes the crust shatter instead of bread. Baking powder blisters it. And the shaggy step is worth more than every other detail on this card: a smooth dredge gives you a smooth coating, and a smooth coating is just a jacket. You want geography. The rest at the end is what glues it on. Skip that and you'll watch your crust float off into the oil, and there's no fixing it once it starts.

Whisk together 2 cups AP flour, 1/2 cup cornstarch, 1 Tbsp kosher salt, 2 tsp black pepper, 2 tsp garlic powder, 2 tsp onion powder, 1 Tbsp smoked paprika, 1 tsp cayenne, 1 tsp baking powder.
Spoon 5 or 6 Tbsp of the buttermilk brine straight into the dry flour and rub it through with your fingers until it goes shaggy and pebbly, little clumps all through it. Those clumps are the craggy bits.
Pull each piece from the brine, let it drip about three seconds, into the flour.
Press it in hard. Both hands, like you mean it. Then onto a wire rack.
Rest the dredged chicken 25 minutes before it sees oil. Non-negotiable.

3The Fry

325, not 350. Bone-in dark meat needs fourteen minutes in there, and at 350 you get a dark crust wrapped around a raw hinge at the bone. And dark meat is not done at 165. It's safe at 165 and it's good at 178, because that's where the collagen goes. That single number is the difference between chewy and giving, and it's the most common mistake on this dish.

Peanut oil, 2 inches deep, in a 6-quart Dutch oven. A heavy pot holds temperature. A thin pot swings forty degrees every time you add a piece and you'll chase it all night.
Bring it to 325F.
Three or four pieces at a time, never crowded. The oil will drop to about 300 when they go in. Ride the burner to hold 300 to 315 through the fry, then bring it back to 325 before the next batch.
Thighs 13 to 15 minutes, drums 14 to 16. Turn once, halfway.
Pull at 175 to 180F internal, thickest part, off the bone.
Straight onto a wire rack over a sheet pan. Never paper towels. A towel traps steam under the piece and undoes the whole fry in ninety seconds.
Salt it the second it comes out of the oil, while it's still wet with fat. That's the only moment salt sticks.
Rack into a 200F oven. It holds thirty minutes without dying.

4The Waffles

Buttermilk and cornmeal, low sugar. The waffle here is a plate, not a dessert. Cornmeal gives it the grit and the backbone to hold a fried thigh and a pour of sauce without going to mush. Folding whipped whites in last is the whole difference between a waffle and a pancake with grid marks on it.

Dry bowl: 1 3/4 cups AP flour, 1/2 cup fine cornmeal, 2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp baking soda, 1 Tbsp sugar (that's all), 1 1/4 tsp kosher salt.
Wet bowl: 2 cups buttermilk, 3 egg yolks, 6 Tbsp melted butter, plus 2 Tbsp bacon fat if you've got it.
Combine wet into dry. Lumps are fine. Rest 15 minutes.
Whip the 3 whites to soft peaks and fold them in gently, right before you pour.
Iron fully preheated, medium-high. Don't open it early to look.
Go by steam: heavy plume, then it thins, then it stops. When it stops it's done, about 4 to 5 minutes.
Each waffle straight onto a wire rack in that same 200F oven. Do not stack them. Stacked waffles steam each other soft in about a minute.

5Hot Honey Butter

This is the call over straight maple. Maple alone on fried chicken makes the plate a dessert with meat in it. The vinegar and the heat cut the fry and pull the whole thing back to savory, and that's what makes you want a third piece.

Warm together 1/2 cup honey, 4 Tbsp butter, 2 Tbsp hot sauce, 1 tsp cider vinegar, a pinch of cayenne and a pinch of salt.
Warm, not boiled. Hold it on the lowest burner.
Serve it in a pitcher, poured at the table.
If you want maple anyway: 1 cup real maple, 3 Tbsp butter, 2 Tbsp bourbon, pinch of salt, reduced three minutes.

6The Timing

This is the part nobody writes down and it's the reason home versions arrive cold. Chicken forgives a thirty-minute hold, a waffle forgives about six, so chicken goes first and waffles go last. The oven is your buffer, not a cooking step. Count backward from when you want to eat.

T-18 hr: dry brine, uncovered on a rack in the fridge.
T-6 hr: into the buttermilk.
T-90 min: chicken out of the fridge, onto the counter.
T-75 min: mix the dredge, shag it with brine, dredge every piece, onto the rack.
T-60 min: oil on and climbing to 325. Oven to 200 with two wire racks set up.
T-55 min: waffle batter mixed, dry into wet, resting. Whites still in the shell.
T-50 min: batch one in.
T-34 min: batch two in. Salt batch one, into the oven.
T-25 min: sauce on the lowest burner. Whip the whites, fold them in.
T-20 min: waffle iron on. Salt batch two, into the oven.
T-15 min: waffles start. Each one to the oven rack as it comes off.
T-0: all of it out of the oven at once.
One rule underneath all of it: the enemy is steam, not time. Everything sits on a wire rack with air moving under it. Nothing on a plate, nothing on a towel, nothing stacked, nothing under foil.
Two inches of 325 oil on the stove and animals underfoot. Shut the kitchen door.

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