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Recipe

Spicy Fried Chicken with Hollandaise and Cranberry

this is what we're doing today! spicy fried chicken, hollandaise sauce with cranberry sauce n tequila! LFG!!!!

Fried chicken, hollandaise and cranberry sauce on the same board. On paper it is three different meals. On the plate it is fat, acid and sweet in that order, which is the only three things any plate needs.

Hollandaise has a reputation it does not deserve. Done in a blender with hot butter poured in slowly it takes ninety seconds and it does not split, because a blender holds the emulsion together far better than a whisk and a nervous hand over a pan.

The chicken is spiced in the flour, not after. Cayenne thrown on at the end just sits on the surface and burns your lips; cayenne in the dredge cooks into the crust.

Feeds
4
Hands-on
50 minutes
Hollandaise
90 seconds, blender
Heat
Cayenne, in the dredge

Brine the chicken overnight. The hollandaise is the last thing you make and it waits for nobody.

The whole hollandaise chicken spread on the boardFried chicken under hollandaise with boiled eggs
Shot the night it was made. Open any picture for the full photograph.

What you need

The chicken

  • 8 pieces bone-in chicken
  • 2 cups buttermilk and 1 tbsp salt, overnight
  • 2 cups flour
  • 2 tbsp cayenne
  • 1 tbsp smoked paprika
  • 1 tbsp granulated garlic
  • 2 tsp salt, 2 tsp black pepper
  • 3 quarts neutral oil for frying

The blender hollandaise

  • 3 egg yolks
  • 1 tbsp lemon juice
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • A pinch of cayenne
  • 1 stick butter, melted and HOT

Alongside

  • 4 eggs, boiled 9 minutes and peeled
  • 12 oz cranberries, 3/4 cup sugar, 1/2 cup water

How it goes

  1. 1 — Buttermilk and salt, overnight

    Chicken submerged in salted buttermilk in the fridge overnight. The acid tenderises and the salt gets all the way in.

  2. 2 — Cayenne goes into the flour

    Flour, cayenne, paprika, garlic, salt and pepper mixed properly. Two tablespoons of cayenne across two cups of flour is warm, not punishing — double it if you mean it.

  3. 3 — Dredge wet, press hard, rest ten minutes

    Straight from the buttermilk into the flour, pressed in with your hand so it clumps and clings. Then ten minutes on a rack — the coating hydrates and stops falling off in the oil.

  4. 4 — Fry at 325°F, 14 to 16 minutes

    In batches, turned once. Cooked through to 175°F in a thigh. Onto a rack, salted immediately.

  5. 5 — Cranberries in fifteen minutes

    Berries, sugar and water simmered until most have popped and it thickens. Stop while a third are whole. Cool it — it should be cold against hot chicken.

  6. 6 — Hollandaise in a blender, butter HOT

    Yolks, lemon, salt and cayenne blended for ten seconds, then the hot melted butter poured in a thin steady stream with the motor running. Ninety seconds and it is done.

    pro tip — The butter has to be properly hot — it is what cooks the yolks. Warm butter gives you a thin sauce that never sets.

  7. 7 — Make it last, serve it immediately

    Hollandaise does not wait and it does not reheat. It is the final act: chicken on the board, eggs halved beside it, sauce poured over, cranberry in its own bowl.

Tequila with it. That part is not optional. LFG. LFG.

More of what comes out of this kitchen on the food wall.

Every picture on this page is one of mine. I paint for a living the rest of the time — that is the gallery, and the originals are for sale.