Week #42: Tennessee - Nashville Hot Chicken Pizza

State:  Tennessee

When thinking of Tennessee, you think of BBQ, Elvis, and Country music.  After researching, I learned that the Hot Chicken Sandwich is very popular in TN.  Since I love heat and chicken, I had to make a pizza out of this.  Since the sandwich is usually accompanied with fries, I had to put them on the pizza as well.  Here is my tribute to the state of Tennessee.  I hope you enjoy it!  It was very good.  

Ingredients:

1 lb of chicken fingers

1 cup of cooked French fries

1 tbsp freshly ground black pepper

2 teaspoons kosher salt

1 large egg

2 cups buttermilk or whole milk

2 tablespoons vinegar-based hot sauce (such as Tabasco or Texas Pete)

1 cups all-purpose flour

Canola Oil (enough to cover bottom of pan) - I am not deep frying the chicken fingers

6 tablespoons cayenne pepper

2 tablespoons dark brown sugar

1 teaspoon chili powder

1 teaspoon garlic powder or minced garlic

1 teaspoon paprika

Hot Chicken:

Sprinkle salt and pepper over top of the raw chicken. Next, whisk the eggs, buttermilk, and hot sauce in a large bowl.  In another bowl, combine flour and 2 teaspoons salt.  Add chicken fingers into egg and milk mixture, ensuring all sides are covered.  Then, dredge chicken into flour mixture, ensuring all sides are covered.  Continue the process one more time or three times if necessary. In a large frying pan, add enough oil to coat the bottom and turn on medium heat.  Cook on both sides of chicken until it reaches a dark brown.  Ensure chicken is cooked through at 170 degrees.  Remove from pan and allow chicken to dry on a plate with paper towels.  Allow chicken to cool, then cut into bite-sized pieces and set aside. 

Hot Sauce:

Whisk cayenne, brown sugar, chili powder, garlic powder, and paprika in a medium bowl.  Carefully whisk in 1 cup frying oil and mix well. Brush fried chicken with spicy oil.  Save a little bit of oil mixture for crust. 

Pizza:

Preheat oven to 450.  Cook crust for 10 minutes or until slightly browned.  Turn down heat to 400 degrees.  Brush remaining oil onto pizza crust (See Learning Moments section).  Add a layer of cheddar cheese and add the cooked fries on top of the pizza.  Then, add the pieces of chicken across the pizza to ensure the pizza is covered appropriately.  Add a little more cheese and put back into oven for another 3-5 minutes to heat the cheese. 

Pairing:

With the heat of the chicken, the cheese and fries, this pizza screams for something acidic like an IPA.  For TN, I didn't have a beer from there at the time.  I will update this section very soon with a beer from TN.  Cheers!

Learning Moments:

I really enjoyed the pizza, but I wasn't a fan of using oil to coat the chicken finger.  When you put the pizza in the oven, it dried the chicken a little.  So, with that said, I would change from being oil base to more of a sauce based coating for the chicken.  I will probably take another stab at this pizza and use sweet potato fries instead.  The sweetness and the heat would make this pizza zing off the charts.  Overall, I enjoyed it, but with a hot sauce instead of oil, it would have been much better.  Hope you enjoy!