Sous-vide Fried Chicken Recipe
So, a few weeks ago we did a video on fried chicken. A classic, obviously. But after we got our immersion circulator, we discovered that there is a method for sous-vide fried chicken, and let me tell you: It is SO EASY. Basically, you're going to cook your chicken parts in the sous-vide until it's completely cooked all the way through (and since you have such good control of the temperature, they won't overcook) then you do your dredging, breading, and frying. You can fry it at a slightly higher temperature for a very short time because the insides are already cooked! The result comes out incredibly moist, good crispy outside, and seasoned just how you want.
A quick note about the salt: I know lots of people want to control their salt intake and reduce their sodium, but what we did here was basically giving the chicken a salt cure, which helps it stay more moist and juicy after cooking. It also seasons the meat before you get to the dredging. We added some fresh herbs in there and it gave everything this lovely aroma when it was fried.
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So all I've had today is, like, six gummy bears and some scotch, so this might get a little long-winded 
I won't get into equilibrium brining here; suffice it to say it's a modernist technique analogous to sous-vide: rather than applying excess salt to a product and hoping you get the final concentration right, you calculate how much salt you want in your product and work backwards to get the brine concentration right. With products I sous vide (vac-pac NOT low-temperature immersion, but that's an entire post unto itself) I've taken to skipping the brine and just doing it in the bag. The only equipment you need beyond a vac-packer is a modernist kitchen scale accurate to 0.01g, they can be had on Amazon for about $10.
So, here's the procedure. Weigh your meat to the nearest gram; a regular kitchen scale is fine for this but I do prefer this guy; it has a 3kg limit for large batches but displays to 0.1g - like any good scientist who suffered through Analytical Chem I round to +/- 1 gram, plenty accurate for our needs. If your meat has bones you need to subtract the weight of those; that is left as an exercise to the reader but Google offers a plethora of charts and tables to figure it out...it's hardly a new process. So now that you have the weight of your protein, you weight out 1.5% salt. You could use the 0.1g scale I linked, but that's really only good to the gram and while the salt won't hurt you...I also add a very precise 0.3% sodium tripolyphosphate. Yes, it's a chemical. Yes, it's synthetic. Yes, it's in many crap processed foods. But all it really is is a moisture retainer. Commercial producers use it to boost the weight of the cooked meat they sell you; I use it with the chickens my buddy raises on his homestead in VT, the most freerange wild-ass organic birds you can imagine, and it means that the meat barely leaks any liquid into the sous-vide bag and is unspeakably juicy when you eat it, like it was soaked in chicken broth. Food chemistry is almost invariably meant to boost profit, but it can easily boost flavor. SORRY, RAMBLING, SCOTCH.
So you have your 1.5% salt, 0.3% TPP, and whatever other seasoning you may wish...I like thyme, onion powder, garlic powder and black pepper for a general-use chicken breast. Anyhoo, you then get your bags ready and sprinkle your mix all over the meat, making sure anything that doesn't stick still gets into the bag...that's important. Seal the bags, label&date, and refrigerate for 72 hours. Then circulate; the lowest optimal temperature may not be the best though. I find with chicken breast, with the TPP holding the juice in, 142.5F is as moist at 140F but a little less "squidgy" texturally. And then of course deep-fry it if that was your goal. I'm pretty sure the best deep-fried chicken I've ever eaten was done this way; I've asked the chef and he was understandably mum, the one guy I know who worked at the restaurant won't spill it...
