Ordering fried chicken is one of my favorite things to do. I love to cook, as you’ve probably guessed from the nature of my job, but the thick, crispy barnacles of breading they achieve at Popeyes and KFC are a precious work of art. I’m not saying you should stop going to these fine establishments, but once you learn this trick, you won’t have to. You can get the same crispy, layered breading on your fried food: just add a little marinade to your dry dredge.

While perusing the Instagram account of my favourite Australian cookbook author, Nagi Maehashi, I saw her purposely toss some of the chicken’s buttermilk marinade into the flour and spice mixture. That’s odd. Professional chefs usually strongly advise tapping off excess moisture before breading to prevent the batter from clumping. You can even place your right hand in one hand and your left hand in the other, to prevent the wet and dry from unnecessarily coming into contact with each other.

This is because excess marinade falls off the chicken or fish and swirls around in the flour, creating lumps of breadcrumbs with no substance. Yet, there she was, spooning marinade into the flour and mixing it in. I soon realized she was making the crispy flakes I love so much from fried takeout food.

When you add a little marinade to your dry ingredients and pinch it all together, you are essentially creating little moments of flaky, savory dough. When you dip the pork or shrimp into the mixture, these flakes will stick to the marinade along with the rest of the flour mixture.