Nashville Hot Chicken

Whisk 500 ml Buttermilk, 2 tbsp Louisiana-style hot sauce and 1 tbsp Salt in a big bowl. Slip in the Chicken thighs pieces, turn them over so every bit of skin is coated, cover and refrigerate at least 4 h, ideally overnight. Take the bowl out of the fridge 30 min before you fry so the chicken loses its chill.

⚠ Tip: Bone-in thighs need the long soak: the buttermilk tenderises the meat and its acid helps the crust grab on.

Stir Plain flour, Cornflour, 2 tsp Ground black pepper, 1 tbsp Paprika, 1 tbsp Garlic powder and 2 tsp Onion powder in a wide dish. Lift each piece of chicken straight from the buttermilk brine, let the buttermilk drip back, and press it hard into the flour on all sides. Rest the coated pieces on a rack for 10 min: the flour needs to hydrate into a shaggy jacket or it slides off in the oil.

⚠ Tip: Press, don't shake. Loose flour in the oil burns and turns the whole batch bitter.

Pour 1.5 l Peanut oil into a deep heavy pot, no more than halfway up, and heat it to 170 °C. It is ready when a pinch of the seasoned flour sizzles hard and rises straight back up.

⚠ Tip: Fry in two batches. Crowding drops the oil temperature and you get greasy, pale crust.

Lower half the coated chicken into the oil and fry, turning once, until the crust is deep amber and the pieces read 75 °C at the bone, about 15 min for thighs. Drain on a rack, never on paper, and keep them warm while you fry the second batch.

⚠ Tip: Wire rack, not kitchen paper: paper steams the underside of the crust soft.

While the chicken drains, warm 120 g Lard in a small pan over low heat. Add 3 tbsp Cayenne pepper, 1 tbsp Brown sugar, 1 tsp Smoked paprika and 1 tsp Garlic powder and stir for 1 min, until it smells toasty and darkens a shade. Take it off the heat before it scorches.

⚠ Tip: Low heat only. Cayenne left in fat that is too hot goes from toasty to acrid in seconds.

Lay the fried chicken on its rack and spoon the hot paste generously over every piece, turning each one and hitting the underside too. The crust must still be hot and crackling so the fat soaks in and the colour goes glossy red. Use the lot: half measures make a mild chicken, not a hot one.

⚠ Tip: Douse straight from the fryer, in the pan you fried in if you can. Once the crust cools, the paste sits on top instead of binding.

Lay a slice of 8 slices White bread on each plate, set the doused chicken on top so the paste drips into the bread, and crown with cold 80 g Gherkins chips. Eat with your hands while everything is still spitting.

⚠ Tip: A second slice of bread under the first is not greed, it is engineering.