Sweet Tea–Brined Fried Chicken Thighs

We interview the creator of the dish to find out why you should be frying this chicken at home. This recipe for juicy, sweet-salty Southern fried chicken with a hit of black tea and lemon is inspired by the dish created by Chef John Fleer, published in The Blackberry Farm Cookbook: Four Seasons of Great Food and the Good Life (2009). We adapted our version to be failproof for the home cook. We started by making a concentrated tea as the base for our brine to ensure that the tea's subtle flavor notes came through in the finished chicken. Salt in the brine guaranteed juicy chicken that was seasoned throughout, while sugar and lemon amplified the sweet-tea flavor profile. A quick dip in buttermilk before dredging in a seasoned mix of flour and cornstarch helped create a substantial coating that fried up crunchy and crispy. Because the increased sugar content of the brine caused our chicken to brown quickly, we heated our frying oil to a relatively low 325 degrees and pulled the pieces out when they were perfectly golden brown, finishing cooking in a low oven. Calling for chicken thighs (rather than a cut-up whole bird) was a nod to Fleer's preference for fried dark meat, with the added benefit that the recipe's cooking times are very forgiving, since thighs are less prone to drying out or overcooking.

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