Nashville Hot Chicken

This method starts by first separating your chicken into quarters then brining for a minimum of 4 hours but, ideally overnight. Get the best welfare free range chicken you can find. Small to medium size will help the chicken to cook faster. Trim out the spine and spatchcock the chicken flat. Then cut directly into two halves along the breast bone. With each half then trim off the leg to create one portion, leaving the wing connected to the breast for the second portion. Do the same on the other chicken half and there you have all four portions. You can just multiply this recipe up for more guests if you need to, you may not need to double the flour breading, maybe only half again but always better to have more then less. Also, if you really want to do this but, in a hurry, and don't want to do any trimming, either use just leg portions or even thigh fillets with the bone out.

Find a bowl large enough for your chicken pieces that will also fit in your fridge and pour in one pot of the buttermilk. Then add in your chicken and pour over the second pot of buttermilk. To the bowl add the hot sauce, paprika, salt and pepper and stir well so all the chicken is fully coated and the ingredients have been combined into the buttermilk. If possible, let your chicken sit like this for 8hrs or overnight but aim for 4 hours as an absolute minimum. When you are ready to cook, take the chicken out and tap them out onto a wire rack so the excess buttermilk can all drip off. 

Caution - Frying on your BBQ needs a lot of attention, please make sure you have the correct safety equipment to hand. To keep it as safe as possible you will need a high sided pot and ideally be looking for a shallow fry. You will want your oil to maintain a safe temperature of 180c and at no point do you want your oil going over 200c. Bring your BBQ and oil up to temperature slowly as it will be much easier to control. I used a large cast iron Dutch oven filled about 1/3 full with vegetable oil.

In another large bowl or tray mix together all of the dry ingredients for the flour breading. Once mixed, grab each part of the chicken which should still be wet with some buttermilk and press it into the flour mix. Turn each piece and cover and press down hard to ensure it's fully coated in the flour dredge. Then tap each piece to knock the excess flour off and let it sit on a clean cooling rack for another 5 minutes. The flour will start to moisten again from the buttermilk underneath coming through. At this point press the chicken pieces one last time into the flour, knock off the excess again and then carefully lay them straight into the oil, slowly so it doesn't splash. You will probably need to cook the chicken in batches unless you have a very large pan. Do not risk overcrowding the pan as the oil temperature will drop too low and also you do not want any oil coming over the side of the pan onto the flames.

Leave the chicken to cook for 8 minutes then turn over to crisp on the other side. The cook should continue for another 4-6 minutes on the second side or until the internal meat temperature reads 75c all over. You need to keep an eye on the chicken at all times and do not leave the BBQ unattended.

While the chicken is cooking, add together all of the dry 'hot oil sauce' ingredients into a heatproof bowl. Mix until they are all blended and set aside.

Once fully cooked through, carefully remove the chicken from the oil using a slatted spoon and be sure to let the excess oil drain back into the pot before removing the chicken to lay on a clean cooling rack.

Using a ladle, grab about 150ml of the hot cooking oil and add slowly to the dry oil ingredients in the heatproof bowl. This will bubble up and will need to be stirred until all the ingredients have melted together. Then using a brush slather the sauce all over the top of each part of the chicken on the rack until fully coated.

Serve the chicken immediately, on top of some thick cut sliced white bread and some pickles. Crinkle cut fries are optional but highly recommended. That white bread will soak up all those juices and believe me you'll want it to.