Buttermilk Chicken

You may have seen Buttermilk chicken a lot on menu’s recently. Or this may be the first time you have read it? Buttermilk is essentially the liquid left over when butter is made from cream, it is a very low fat extremely sour tasting slightly more viscous than milk  as all the fat has been transferred to the more solid like butter when it is churned and traditionally the milk was left out to separate it from the cream thus encouraging the lactic acid to ferment.

Modern day buttermilk is just milk with a culture bacteria of Lactococcus lactis added to promote the milk to ferment increase the acid content and create the buttermilk. You can now buy it in most supermarkets, but it is very easy to make your own buttermilk substitute at home from whole milk and lemon juice.

When using it with chicken the acid will help cut into the chicken and impart any flavouring you add. This is how Southern Fried chicken came about, KFC originally dipped the chicken in buttermilk and their famous spices with flour and fried in a pressure fryer to achieve that crisp finger lickin’ dish. The famous secret recipe recently escaped and is available all over the web and in various blogs.

Give it a try at home, I'm sure it will be your favourite dish for every meals !!