Vietnamese Fried Chicken - by Imbue Food & Wine

Ingredients

Brine:

3 L Water
150 g cooking salt

Chicken:

1 kg chicken thigh, diced (see note)
Plain flour
Water

Sticky Fish Sauce:

1 cup fish sauce
1 cup sugar

Garnish:

Fried shallots
Sliced fresh chilli
Sliced spring onion
Mixed sesame seeds, black and white

*Note: You don't have to use chicken thigh, ribs, wings or even breast can be used, however cooking times may vary according to the size of whatever cut you're using.

Method

To make the brine, boil 1 L of water along with the cooking salt until dissolved and add to the remaining 2 L of water. This solution needs to be chilled completely. Store in a large container as you will be adding the chicken to it.

Once the solution is cooled, add your chicken pieces and keep it in the refrigerator for at least 3 to 4 hours.

To make the sticky fish sauce, place the ingredients into a heavy bottom sauce pan and reduce to a thick glaze. Be careful as while the sauce is cooking, it’s prone to foam up and overflow so be sure to keep an eye on it. Turn the heat right down to a slow simmer if need be.

Prepare garnish. Wash and slice spring onions on an angle and reserve. Slice chilli in the same way. If you can’t stand chilli leave it out, or take out the seeds before you slice the chilli to remove most of the heat.

To cook the chicken, dip the chicken into water and then dredge with plain flour. Carefully place chicken in batches into the fryer and fry for 6 mins. Depending on how big the pieces of chicken are this can take longer, especially so if you are using cuts of chicken that contain bones i.e. wings, drums or ribs. Make sure your chicken is cooked by opening a piece up and checking. Once cooked, drain on kitchen towel and transfer to a serving dish. Drizzle sticky fish sauce onto chicken, garnish with spring onion, chilli, sesame seeds and fried shallots.

Equipment

Deep fryer, preheated to 180C.

Recipe provided by Imbue Food & Wine