Spicy Chicken Nuggets

We closed on the house. September 1, 2020. The Cascade Heights house. Four bedrooms. Two and a half bathrooms (the half bathroom alone feels like luxury after a year of six-person bathroom negotiations). A kitchen with granite countertops, a gas stove, and a window over the sink that looks out onto a magnolia tree. Derek and I signed the papers and held the keys and stood in the empty living room and I cried. I cried because the house is three streets from where I grew up. I cried because Mama's house is around the corner. I cried because Curtis can walk here. I cried because the kitchen has a gas stove and Mama always said electric was fine but gas was better and Mama was right about everything, including stoves.

Derek converted the basement immediately — within days, with the efficiency of a man who has been planning this in his head for a year. The basement became Curtis's apartment. Accessible. Safe. A place for a seventy-four-year-old man who has been living alone since his wife died, who has been rattling around in a house that's too big and too quiet, to be close. To be near. To be fed. Curtis moved in the second week of September. He stood in the kitchen — MY kitchen, the one I'd dreamed about — and he said, "It's different." I said, "Different good?" He said, "Different." He ate dinner at my table that night and every night since and the "different" has become home.

The first meal in the new kitchen: Mama's fried chicken. What else? The Folgers can went on the counter — the new counter, the granite counter — and I opened it and the smell filled the room and the room was new but the smell was old and the combination is what home feels like: the new holding the old, the old seasoning the new. I fried chicken in a new kitchen with an old recipe and the kitchen smelled like Cascade Heights has always smelled and the table sat eight and the eight of us — me, Derek, Marcus, Jasmine, Isaiah, Zoe, Curtis, and Mama's empty chair — we sat down. We ate. We were home.

Mama’s recipe lives in my hands now — the seasoning ratios I can measure without measuring, the way I know by sound when the oil is ready. When I made this for the first night in Cascade Heights, I leaned into the heat because that’s how Mama made it: not timid, not polite, but bold enough that you knew something good was happening from the next room. These spicy chicken nuggets are as close as I can get to writing that recipe down — same spirit, same crust, same insistence that the first meal in any kitchen worth keeping should fill the whole house with something that smells like you belong there.

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 25 min | Total Time: 45 min | Servings: 8

Ingredients

2 1/2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1 1/2-inch pieces
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
2 teaspoons hot sauce (such as Crystal or Frank’s)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons cayenne pepper
1 1/2 teaspoons smoked paprika
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt, plus more to taste
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Vegetable or peanut oil, for frying (about 4 cups)

Instructions

Marinate the chicken. In a large bowl, whisk together the buttermilk and hot sauce. Add the chicken pieces, toss to coat, cover, and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes or up to 4 hours. The longer the soak, the more tender the result.
Make the seasoned flour. In a wide shallow dish, whisk together the flour, cayenne, smoked paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, oregano, salt, and black pepper until evenly combined.
Heat the oil. Pour oil into a large heavy-bottomed skillet or Dutch oven to a depth of about 2 inches. Heat over medium-high heat until it reaches 350°F. Use a thermometer — consistent temperature is what keeps the crust from going greasy.
Dredge the chicken. Lift each piece from the buttermilk marinade and let the excess drip off. Press each piece firmly into the seasoned flour, turning to coat all sides. Set on a wire rack while you finish the batch.
Fry in batches. Working in two or three batches to avoid crowding, carefully lower nuggets into the hot oil. Fry for 5–6 minutes, turning once or twice, until deep golden brown and cooked through to an internal temperature of 165°F.
Drain and season. Transfer cooked nuggets to a paper towel-lined plate or clean wire rack. Sprinkle with a pinch of kosher salt immediately while still hot.
Serve hot. Pile them on a platter and bring them to the table. They don’t wait well — and neither will the people sitting down.

Nutrition (per serving)

Spicy Chicken Nuggets — The First Meal in the Cascade Heights Kitchen