Honey Harissa Chicken
This dish is so delish, its is hard to stop eating. You can fry, air fry, stovetop or over bake the chicken. Of course deep fry gets you that oily crispy result, but honestly the sauce is so good that any way tastes great! I caught the idea for preserved lemons from another recipe and may be using that trick a lot more now!
1/2 preserved lemon, seeds removed, smashed to a paste like consistency
3 cloves crushed garlic
1 1/4 cup low-fat buttermilk
1 1/2 cups rice flour (1/2 cup reserved for frying)
1/2 cup corn starch (1/4 cup reserved for frying)
Salt
2 lbs skinless, boneless chicken thighs, cut into 1" pieces
Canola oil: if you are deep frying you need about 10 cups. If you are pan frying, air frying or baking, just a couple of tablespoons
Sauce
1/2 cup butter
4 TBSP honey
1/4 cup harissa
Juice and zest of one lemon
2 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp onion powder
Salt
Pepper
In a bowl mix together buttermilk, preserved lemon, salt and garlic. Mix well. Combine reserve flour, cornstarch and 2 tsp salt in a bowl and set aside. Stir in rest of cornstarch and flour buttermilk mixture. Add chicken and let marinate 2 hour to overnight.
Prepare the chicken. Dredge each piece through the dry flour mixture and make sure you coat it. Alternatively you can place chicken in a gallon zip lock baggie and shake to coat. You may need to do this in batches. The main goal is to get the pieces coated.
If you are deep frying, heat the oil in dutch oven or the like t 350 and fry the chicken in batches, about 7 minutes each. Lay on paper towel to drain.
To oven fry heat oven to 425 and lay the chicken in one layer on a lined baking sheet. Drizzle with oil and bake 9 minutes, turn over and bake 9 more.
To make the sauce, melt the butter in a sauce pan and add rest of ingredients. Place hot chicken in a bowl and toss to coat sauce on. Serve hot with tatziki or blue cheese and fresh vegetables like celery, radish and carrot.