One thing our girl has really missed since her diagnosis, is some really good fried chicken, and while we’ve made it quite a few times, it’s taken us a little while to get the recipe right.

And though it’s still not the exact same as KFC, it’s damn good, and not too time consuming to make… Though it’s definitely not one to try to make at the last minute! All the herbs and spices are a little bit of an investment at the start, but they go a long way, so over the course of 8 or 10 batches, it does work out to be quite cheap to make…

Dry Mix Ingredients:

• 1 tsp white pepper
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 1/2 tsp oregano
• 1/2 tsp thyme
• 1/2 tsp parsley
• 1/4 tsp cumin
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp onion powder
• 1/4 tsp garlic powder
• 2 cups of gluten free plain flour

Other Ingredients:

• 250ml buttermilk
• 1 kg chicken tenderloins (or chicken cut of your choice)

Method:

• Soak the chicken in the buttermilk for 4 hours.
• Mix all dry ingredients together.
• Coat each piece of chicken in the dry mix, and leave to sit for half an hour in the fridge (we like to spread it out on a cooling rack, so that the air circulates around it).
• Coat each piece for a second time.
• Cook in a deep fryer, on an oven rack, or in an air fryer until cooked. If using an oven rack or air fryer, turn a couple of times during cooking to ensure the coating doesn’t stick to the tray.
• Drain on paper towel if deep fried, to soak up any extra oil, as this might make the coating go soggy if left moist.

Tips:

If you have Melanie Persson’s “The very hungry coeliac” cookbook, I have used her flour blend for this, and it gave the coating a beautiful colour once cooked, but any flour blend that you like will do.

We often freeze the leftover cooked chicken, and reheat it in the air fryer, and it goes beautifully crunchy again, just as originally cooked.

To get the full KFC fake-away experience, we serve it with mashed potato and gravy, chips, and either coleslaw or corn cobs.