Chicken-fried chicken with peanut soy
- Preparation and cooking time
- Total time
- + marinating overnight + chilling
- A little effort
- Serves 2
Ingredients
- 120g sea salt
- 4 red chillies
- 6 cloves garlic
- a small bunch coriander, plus extra to serve
- 2 sticks lemongrass, finely chopped
- 100ml peanut oil
- 2 whole chicken legs
- 300g jar duck fat
- ½ lemon, wedged to serve
- to serve coriander leaves
CUCUMBER PICKLES
- 120ml rice vinegar
- 3 tbsp caster sugar
- ½ lemon, zested
- 1 cucumber, finely sliced
PEANUT SOY
- 75g roasted peanuts (not salted)
- 125ml (see notes below) kecap manis
- a pinch dried chilli flakes
Method
- STEP 1
Put the salt, chillies, garlic, coriander, lemongrass and peanut oil into a food processor and whizz to a purée. Put the chicken into a container and pour over the salt mixture, rubbing it in well. Cover and chill overnight.
- STEP 2
Rinse the marinade off the chicken and pat really dry with kitchen paper. Put the chicken legs into a small pan so that they fit really snugly and add enough duck fat to completely cover the chicken. Use a thermometer to bring the fat up to 90C and keep it there, cooking gently for 1½ hours until very tender. Remove from the fat, cool and chill until completely cold. Allow the duck fat to cool completely then push through a fine sieve and reserve for later.
- STEP 3
Warm the rice vinegar, sugar, lemon zest and 1 tbsp salt in a pan until the sugar and salt has dissolved, then cool. Put the cucumber slices into a bowl and pour over the pickling liquid. Leave for 30 minutes before draining to serve.
- STEP 4
For the peanut soy, finely chop the peanuts, then mix with the kecap manis and dried chilli flakes.
- STEP 5
Fill a pan no more than 1/3 full with the reserved duck fat and heat to 160C or until a cube of bread browns in 45 seconds. Fry the chicken legs, one at a time, for 5 minutes or until deeply golden and crisp. Drain on kitchen paper and keep warm in a low oven while you fry the other.
- STEP 6
Spoon a pool of peanut soy onto each plate, put a chicken leg on top with a generous pile of cucumbers, a lemon wedge and some coriander leaves.
