‹ The Fried Chicken 100 › Make it at home

The Fried Chicken 100 · make it at home

Filipino-style fried chicken with banana ketchup gravy

2 hr marinate, 45 min · 4, with rice

How Manila's Max's does it: chicken marinated in calamansi, garlic and fish sauce, gently poached so it's tender through, then fried without any batter until the skin is thin, mahogany and crackly. Banana ketchup and Worcestershire on the side.

Save it and it opens in Chef Amazing with a timeline, mise en place, what you already have and a shopping list.

The real one

You need

• 1 chicken, about 1.4 kg (3 lb), quartered, or 1.4 kg bone-in legs
• Marinade: 4 tbsp calamansi or lime juice, 3 tbsp fish sauce, 6 garlic cloves crushed, 1 tsp black pepper, 1 tsp sugar
• For poaching: 1 small onion, 2 bay leaves, 1 tsp peppercorns, water to cover
• Oil for frying, about 2 liters (2 quarts)
• To serve: banana ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, steamed rice, calamansi halves

How to make it

1. Marinate (2 hr to overnight): Toss the chicken with the calamansi, fish sauce, garlic, pepper and sugar. Refrigerate.
2. Poach (20 min): Put the chicken and its marinade in a pot with the onion, bay and peppercorns, and add water to just cover. Bring to a bare simmer and cook 20 minutes, until just cooked through. Lift out.
3. Dry (30 min): Set the chicken skin side up on a rack and let it dry completely, 30 minutes at room temperature or an hour in the fridge. Dry skin is what crisps; pat any wet spots.
4. Fry (8 to 10 min): Heat oil to 180°C (355°F). Fry 2 pieces at a time, skin side down first, 8 to 10 minutes, turning, until the skin is deep golden brown and blistered. Drain on a rack and sprinkle with salt.
5. Serve (1 min): Mix banana ketchup with a few dashes of Worcestershire for dipping, and serve with rice and calamansi.

Tips

• The poaching liquid makes a good soup: simmer it with ginger and greens.
• Stand back: poached chicken can spit when it first hits the oil. Make sure it's dry.

Chef Amazing's own home version, in our words; not any restaurant's recipe.