Recipe: Sriracha Fried Chicken Waffle Cones

Posted on 14 May, 2021

That intense-looking kid with the hypercoloured jumpsuit and fierce bowl cut hanging around the food table at birthday parties? Yep, that was me.

Smashing chips into the top of cupcakes. Making the world’s best sandwich by squishing a mini sausage roll and a handful of Cheetos between two pieces of fairy bread.

Ever since I was a greedy pipsqueak with perpetual cake face, I’ve loved putting foods together that really shouldn’t exist in the same mouthful.

Dreaming up weirdo flavour combinations that could turn out to be either the best or worst thing you’ve ever tasted has always been one of my favourite pastimes: Chocolate and chips. Cheese and jelly. Bacon and butterscotch. Chicken nugget pancakes.

Not much has changed, really. I’m still obsessed with discovering the ultimate sweet and savoury masterpiece. It just feels like winning. I mean, why choose when you can have it all at once?

Heston is of course the master of the weird food combination universe and is rather like a big, genius kid himself. I love the way he comes up with all those crazy flavour and texture combinations, tricking the brain into thinking it’s about to taste one thing, then completely confusing it by making it taste like something else altogether.

It’s like when you get on an escalator that’s not moving and your brain tells your legs they should be going faster than they are, so you stumble clumsily up the first few stairs util your mind catches up with your body.

Like most things in life though, trying something different doesn’t always end well. There are some dishes that aren’t on any menu for good reason (Fried polenta pickles with Nutella, anyone? Nope. I wouldn’t recommend it).

But if you don’t try new things, how will you ever know what you might be missing out on?

And when you do hit on a winner—like these Sriracha fried chicken waffle cones—well, it totally makes up for the fails.

Recipe: Sriracha fried chicken waffle cones

Prep time: 15 mins
Cook time: 15 mins
Makes: 12 cones

Ingredients

400g chicken thigh, chopped to 2cm pieces
12 waffle cones (you can buy them at Woolworths)
Vegetable or Canola oil for deep frying
2 spring onions (green part), finely sliced on the diagonal
2 tbsp sesame seeds, lightly toasted in a dry pan
Sriracha sauce and Kewpie (Japanese) mayonnaise, to serve

Buttermilk marinade

600ml buttermilk
1 tbsp Sriracha
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp garlic salt
1 tsp salt

Flour coating

3 cups plain flour
1 tbsp paprika
1 tsp chicken salt or fries spice
1 tbsp garlic powder
1 tsp cracked pepper

Batter

1 1/2 cups plain flour
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cracked pepper
2 egg yolks, whisked
1 1/2 cups cold water

Method

Mix the buttermilk marinade ingredients together in a bowl, stirring to combine. Add chicken, coating all the pieces evenly. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least two hours (or overnight).

Using tongs, lift chicken pieces out of the buttermilk mixture one at a time, draining off excess buttermilk and rolling each piece in the flour coating, then shaking off excess flour and dipping into the batter, then back into the flour coating for a final layer.

Place the chicken onto a large plate lined with greaseproof paper.

Heat the oil to 180 degrees celsius (either using a deep fryer or filling a deep, heavy-based frypan about halfway up).

Fry chicken in batches for five minutes or until golden, crunchy and cooked all the way through.

Remove carefully from the hot oil with a slotted spoon and leave to cool for five mins on a wire rack with some paper towel underneath to catch the oil drips (this will keep the chicken nice and crispy).

Fill each waffle cone with 2-3 pieces of chicken, drizzle with some Sriracha and Kewpie mayonnaise, and sprinkle with spring onions and toasted sesame seeds to serve.