While re-reading a Cook’s Country Magazine from last summer, I came across a recipe for battered fried chicken. Now, I know what you are thinking…how is that healthy? Well, it’s not! About once every other month I will deep fry something, and that frying happens to be my home made tenders. I am still weary about cooking chicken with the bones in it, so I followed their exact recipe, except, I cut boneless chicken breasts into strips and went from there.

The result? Spectacular!! The one thing I love about Cook’s Country, is the person who is creating the recipe already does the trial and error, so you can be assured that it will turn out perfect.

One thing I haven’t done before is brine chicken. The recipe called for adding the chicken to a mixture of water/sugar/salt about an hour before preparing.

The brine:

4 cups of water
1/2 cup salt
1/4 cup sugar

In a big bowl, add the brining liquid, and add the cut up chicken tenders. Place that in the fridge for 30-60 minutes before making the tenders.

The batter was a thinner batter than I have used in the past. The creator of the recipe, Diane Unger, chose on half flour/half corn starch to get the right consistency. She also added LOTS of black pepper, which I love!

The batter:

1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup corn starch
5 tsp. ground black pepper
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 tsp. paprika
1 tsp. salt

Stir that together in a big bowl and refrigerate the same amount of time as you do the chicken. It should look like this:

After the chicken has brined. Strain the water and pat dry the chicken. Add the chicken to the batter making sure to coat all the chicken. I used about 1 3/4 pounds of chicken breasts and still had a lot of batter leftover.

I use a skillet, and add enough Canola Oil so it covers about 2 inches all the way around. Heat the oil for a good few minutes before adding the chicken.

You know the oil is ready, if you drop a little water in the oil and it starts to spatter.

Now, here is the important part:. Cook each side for 3 minutes only. This will ensure the middle is cooked, but the outside doesn’t burn. I’ve used that method tons of times and it turns out great each time.

As soon as I tasted one, I thought it tasted like Kentucky Fried Chicken. Great spice and peppery. I told that to my kids and realized they haven’t ever had KFC before! Which is kind of good I guess! So I said they had to take my word for it.

I HIGHLY recommend trying this. You can do the same thing using chicken parts except the cooking time is 12 to 15 minutes or until the white meat reaches 160 degrees and the dark meat reaches 175 degrees.