Perfect fried chicken is the Great White Whale in my kitchen. It seems I've tried everything, well almost everything, I have not tried sous-vide.
I'm still on the fence as to whether I'm going to invest in a immersion circulator, and this experiment could put me over the edge, one way or another.
I can reasonably approximate sous-vide in my rice maker by switching it on and off and using my digital thermometer. It actually works pretty well, I can stay within about 5-7 degrees F my target temperature without too much trouble as long as it's not for an obscenely long time. 4-5 Hours is probably my upper limit.
I'm planning on doing roughly this: ChefSteps (thanks @moscafj for the link).
I'm using thighs, and they're big suckers. I prefer thighs cooked quite bit more than other pieces. Should I up the temperature? How much?
Secondly, I have historically found thighs to be extremely forgiving. How much of a temperature range can I allow? Say I'm aiming for 155F (68C). Can I let my rice cooker go until it reaches 160F, turn it off, and then turn it back on at 150F? Over and over again?
Best Answer
I think your temperature range is good. 155 to 160 is a good place for thighs. You will need an hour to an hour and a half. As long as you don't drop into the danger zone you will be fine. You could just check a thigh with a probe thermometer at the end of an on-off session to see where the temp is. Sounds like a bit of a pain, but certainly doable. One caution...that looks like a small pot. If you are doing more than one or two thighs, you will crowd the bag and might not achieve even cooking...this could create a danger if the center of the package did not reach 140. Advice: Get a circulator! If you enjoy eggs, for example, the price is worth egg cookery alone, in my opinion. :-)
By the way, while many people prefer this route toward fried chicken, I actually have had the best success with, and prefer Keller's Ad Hoc recipe.