This recipe is one I created so that my grandson, Michael, could eat my fried chicken. He has a gluten allergy so I had to develop a crust recipe that would be delicious, create a great crust, not be oily and not contain any gluten.

As I thought about it I decided to combine the Sous Vide approach to cooking as that keeps the chicken very moist and tender and shortens the amount of time the battered chicken has to fry in hot oil ... thus promoting a crisp but lightly colored crust on the fried chicken after only six minutes or less of frying time.

I succeeded far better than I expected, and at that, the very first time I tried, though I did have to add a whisked egg to my original ingredients to have a batter that coated the chicken well and fried perfectly. I thought my way through combining flours that lacked gluten to achieve good taste and also a good combination for frying. Like me, you can buy the rice and sorghum flours listed below via www.bulkfoods.com and buy the stone ground cornmeal at your local supermarket. Note that the cornmeal is ground so fine it can be considered to be in flour form.

The best part of all is that the fried batter tastes delicious, so those who do not have a gluten allergy won't mind at all. In fact, it will be a real awakening to just how good non-gluten flour mixtures can be in terms of taste.

Here is a short version of making the chicken pieces Sous Vide that you can do at home without any special equipment. Start with fresh or thawed chicken pieces and either vacuum seal them in vacuum sealing bags, one or only a few pieces per bag depending on the size of the piece(s), without any crowding and single thickness, or use Ziploc® freezer bags and eliminate virtually all the air by sealing them with the top very close to the surface of a pot of cold water, into which you have dipped the bag containing one or more chicken pieces, to eliminate the air in the bag.

The pressure of the water on the outside of the bag, under water, pushes out the air, except for the very tiny amount that will remain when you seal the top of the bag. But note that you are not to get any water at all into the bag.

Note that as a recipe variation you might have some seasoning(s) of your choice or a light marinade in with the chicken as it is cooking via the Sous Vide process. If you want to do that simply rub the seasoning onto the raw chicken or pour the light marinade into the bag before sealing it. Also, if you do that you may want to skip the some of the seasoning ingredients shown in the batter recipe below. Your choice.

Boil about a gallon of water in a pot on your stove.

Use your nice 2 to 3 gallon hard sided food cooler that you take to the beach. Fill it about 3/4 full with hot tap water.

Mix enough of the boiling water into the water in the cooler to achieve a temperature of 148 degrees F. Use an instant read thermometer to measure the temperature accurately.

Put the bagged/sealed chicken pieces into the water and put the lid on the cooler. Check the water temperature every ten minutes and add boiling water as needed to maintain a temperature of 148 degrees F. Note that the bags of chicken pieces should not float on the surface of the hot water if you have properly eliminated the air in each bag.

Cook the chicken pieces in the cooler for a minimum of one hour, moving the bags around periodically with a long wooden spoon to assure even cooking/exposure to the hot water. Actually, since it is impossible to overcook the chicken by this process, I recommend one and one half hours if you use the cooler method, just to be certain the chicken is cooked through, in particular the thick, large breast halves.

When the Sous Vide cooking is done the chicken will be very moist/wet and sometimes slightly pink in color but it will be fully cooked and completely safe to eat.

Remove the bags from the Sous Vide bath and the chicken pieces from the bags and put them on a few paper towels.

Make the batter and the dredging mixture and then fry the chicken pieces per the directions below, put them on paper towels, salt them and put them into a 150 degrees F warming oven in a paper towel lined large bowl. Why not a higher temperature for the warming oven? Well, you made a point of cooking the chicken below 150 degrees F to keep it moist and tender, so why ruin it, even partially, after frying? Now you know. If your minimum oven temperature is 180 degrees F then follow the special instructions given below in the cooking directions.

The batter in this recipe is great for making fried onion rings to accompany the fried chicken, and there is enough excess batter left over from the chicken battering to coat onion rings. After the chicken is fried and resting in the warming oven, peel and then cut a very large onion into 5/8" thick slices, then separate the slices into rings.

Coat the rings with batter and fry them for two minutes per side or until golden in color. Fry only six rings at a time, ergo, do not crowd the onion rings during frying. Monitor the oil temperature closely so it does not exceed 365 degrees F. Adjust the heat as needed.

Remove the fried onion rings to a paper towel and salt them, and then put them into a separate paper towel lined bowl in the warming oven.

Note: Be sure to have the other dishes you plan to serve at this meal, like coleslaw and fruit salad, prepared and chilled before you fry the chicken.

Ingredients:

3 to 4 lbs. of roasting or frying chicken pieces: (breast halves, drumsticks, thighs, wings)

1 very large yellow or vidalia onion (optional ... needed only if you plan to make onion rings)

2 to 3 quarts of peanut, canola or corn oil (2 quarts if you fry using a wok, 3 quarts if you fry using a Dutch oven)

For the batter:

1 cup of gluten free flour (1/2 cup rice flour, 1/4 cup sorghum flour, 1/4 cup stone ground cornmeal)

3 tbsp. of cornstarch

2 tsp. of baking powder

1 jumbo egg, whisked in a 2 quart bowl that will be used to hold the batter

2 tsp. of sea salt

1 can (12 ounces) of ice cold beer

1 ounce of ice cold vodka

1/2 tsp. of black pepper

1/2 tsp. of paprika

1 tsp. of Sriracha sauce

For the dredging mixture:

1/2 cup of gluten free flour (1/4 cup of rice flour, 1/4 cup of sorghum flour)

2 tbsp. of cornstarch

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 150 degrees F (or to 180 degrees F if that is the minimum temperature for your oven).

Use the oven to pre-warm the serving bowl for the fried chicken, the one for the fried onion rings if you are making them, and also to pre-warm the dinner plates you will use for each guest.

Preheat two to three quarts of peanut or canola or corn oil to 365 degrees F, two quarts if in a wok or three quarts if in a Dutch oven.

Wipe the Sous Vide cooked chicken pieces with a paper towel, lightly, to reduce wetness if needed.

Combine the dredging ingredients in a wide shallow bowl.

Combine and gently whisk together all the dry batter ingredients in a one quart bowl.

Add the beer, the vodka and the Sriracha sauce to the whisked egg in the two quart bowl and whisk gently.

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the egg, beer and vodka mixture while whisking, and whisk until everything is well mixed into a homogenous batter. Note that you should let the mixed batter rest for five minutes and then whisk it again briefly just prior to using it.

Dredge and then batter each piece of chicken and put it into the hot frying oil. I use tongs to move battered pieces from the batter into the hot oil, allowing a few moments for excess batter to drip into the batter bowl before putting the piece into the hot oil.

For larger pieces like breast halves I also use a slotted spoon or a spatula underneath the piece to help support the weight. Otherwise a heavy battered piece might slip out from the tongs and splash into the hot oil, causing a fire hazard at the stove and a burn hazard for the cook ... also a needless mess.

Fry only two pieces at a time if they are chicken breast halves, or four at a time for thighs or drumsticks, or up to six at a time for wings.

Increase the heat as necessary to maintain an oil temperature of at least 350 degrees F, but no more than 365 degrees F. Use an instant read thermometer frequently to check the oil temperature during frying and between batches. Adjust the heat as necessary.

Fry the chicken pieces, regardless of size, for six minutes (+ or -) or until light to medium golden in color, turning the pieces over with tongs every two minutes. Wings will typically take less than six minutes of frying time, but use your own judgment about when any piece of chicken is sufficiently fried, noting that all you have to care about is the doneness of the batter, for the chicken meat was already fully cooked Sous Vide prior to frying.

Use the tongs, and for large breast pieces a spatula or slotted spoon also, to help support the weight, to remove the fried chicken pieces from the hot oil, allowing a few seconds for oil to drip from a piece of chicken back into the hot oil. Place the fried chicken pieces on paper towels to drain residual oil and immediately salt them.

Put the chicken pieces into the 150 degrees F warming oven. If your oven has a minimum temperature setting of 180 degrees F then keep the door partially/halfway open to retard the heating/keep the temperature well below 180 degrees F. Place the bowl(s) on a middle shelf.

Repeat the battering and frying steps for the rest of the chicken pieces, remembering to whisk the batter lightly before using it for each batch.

Serve, hopefully along with the delicious fried onion rings and whatever lighter vegetable and/or fruit dishes you made for dinner. You will be very popular. You will receive many compliments.

Be sure to have ice cold beer or ice cold sodas as the beverage for this meal.