Good fried chicken takes time. Typically, the meat is soaked in a seasoned brine for several hours before pieces are dredged in a coating mixture and then fried — often twice, with a rest in between.

Even the home cooks who have the energy and patience for all these steps still need to budget more time to scrub a grease-spattered stovetop. (Let's not get into the ridiculousness of "oven-fried" chicken recipes.)

But fried chicken is a magical food, delivering tantalizing crunch and tender juiciness with every bite. Plus, it must be eaten by hand, adding a touch of playful abandon.

Yes, it's going to get messy. Have fun with that.

"Can you really be sad eating fried chicken?" pondered Harmony Edosomwan, who recently launched weekly Sunday takeout dinners in Winooski starring her excellent version of the dish.

Harmony's Kitchen is one of several Vermont purveyors offering new ways to get your fried chicken fix in 2024. In addition to Edosomwan's soul food-inspired menu, Seven Days sampled fried chicken from two recently opened restaurants: Donwoori Korean in South Burlington and Crispy Burger in Burlington's Old North End.

We also dared to try the spiciest fried chicken sandwich on the new menu at Devil Takes a Holiday in downtown Burlington and chatted with the co-owner of Maple Wind Farm in Richmond about the latest twist on its monthly fried chicken takeout dinners.

There's a fried chicken here for everyone, including vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free alternatives. And, most importantly, someone else will clean the kitchen.

Hot Plate

Harmony's Kitchen, O'Brien Community Center, 32 Malletts Bay Ave., Winooski, 499-2737, harmonyskitchenvt.com

"I'm a pink girl," Edosomwan said. Chatting recently in Winooski's O'Brien Community Center kitchen, she wore a chef jacket embroidered "Chef Harmony," in her favorite shade of hot pink. She said the eye-catching hue represents the spunkiness that has helped propel her business forward.

"I love bright colors and big things, like this big Afro," Edosomwan added, gesturing to her abundant crown of hair.

Edosomwan, 25, began selling her fried chicken and macaroni and cheese as a student at the University of Vermont. After she graduated in 2021, demand for Harmony's Kitchen catering and special events boomed, and Edosomwan quickly outgrew her apartment kitchen.

By February 2023, she was able to rent the 1,000-square-foot community center kitchen by the hour, and she's since taken over the lease. "This is very much an upgrade," Edosomwan said.

The new kitchen allowed her to expand her once-occasional Soul Food Sunday takeout meals, which she offers weekly as of January 14. For $30, each meal includes a pair of deeply bronzed, shaggy-crusted chicken thighs or drumsticks; a dense slab of rich macaroni and cheese; velvety collard greens braised with morsels of smoked turkey; and a wedge of corn bread soaked with honey butter, unexpectedly decadent and more of a dessert than a side. (During January, every order includes a bonus piece of corn bread to celebrate the business's fourth anniversary.)

The plentiful, comforting, rib-sticking food could power you to the moon, with maybe a pit stop on the couch.

Edosomwan's childhood in the Bronx was steeped in soul food, but she channels a mix of cultures in her menu, which she calls Afro-fusion soul food. The chef would not divulge the secret behind her moist and deeply seasoned chicken, but she said it relies on techniques learned from her Nigerian parents. For vegans, Edosomwan substitutes crunchy, battered oyster mushrooms ($32) for chicken. An optional side of rice and beans was inspired by Puerto Rican neighbors.

When she moved to Vermont, Edosomwan said, she missed all those foods. "It's a need that had to be filled," she said. And who better to fill it than a chef in bright pink bearing the crunchiest fried chicken possible?

Daredevil Menu

Devil Takes a Holiday, 111 St. Paul St., Burlington, deviltakesaholiday.com

The cocktail lounge just across the street from Burlington's City Hall Park was buzzing when our party of four arrived at about 8:45 p.m. on a recent Saturday.

We were lucky to score a table, and, in this early-bird town, it was a relief to take our time ordering and eating. The recently relaunched kitchen at Devil Takes a Holiday, run by chef Pablo Murphy-Torres, stays open until midnight on Fridays and Saturdays, 11 p.m. on Mondays through Thursdays, and 10 p.m. on Sundays.

My husband and I started by choosing from the always expertly crafted cocktails. I opted for the Call Your Mom ($16), with single-malt Scotch and a pleasant bitterness from coconut-washed Campari, and he chose the smoky, tart New Calendar ($15), with mezcal and ginger.

The next big decision involved the spice level of our fried chicken (or vegetarian mushroom) sandwiches ($16). My friend went for a conservative (aka wimpy) Innocent for her oyster mushroom version. My husband and I split a medium Purgatory chicken sandwich after we had all nibbled on some small bites and the punchy lemon-and-chile-dressed Horny Caesar ($13).

In designing the new menu, 27-year-old Murphy-Torres said, he drew from his Newark, N.J., youth, during which Kennedy Fried Chicken was a late-night staple. "We wanted to take that sentiment and elevate it," he said.

The three sandwiches on the fried chicken (or mushroom) roster have different veggie and sauce components that complement their heat level. The base for each is a juicy, buttermilk-marinated, crisp-crusted boneless thigh, or a generous spray of fried mushrooms still on the stem and given the same treatment.

In the Innocent variation, a creamy scratch-made roasted garlic aioli paired well with vinegary slaw and seasoned mushrooms, which were just a little too chewy to pull apart easily in the mouth.

The Purgatory chicken sandwich zinged with maple-Thai chile heat and pickled cherry bomb relish, while housemade ginger-pickled carrots added a tangy note.

I later dared a taste of the third spice level, Ninth Circle, with its ghost pepper "hellfire sauce" and "no take backsies" warning — and survived. I'm not sure I would have made it through the whole thing, but a few bites proved the kitchen's finesse in delivering firepower without obliterating all other flavors.

Devil co-owner Taylor Watts is a fan of the Ninth Circle, though he advised pairing it with a beer instead of a cocktail — another reason for me to stay stuck in Purgatory.

Winging It

Donwoori Korean, 2026 Williston Rd., South Burlington, 651-1481, donwoorivt.com

Before Summer Cao opened Donwoori Korean restaurant in South Burlington in mid-December, she took a Florida vacation. The 24-year-old, who said she thrives on adrenaline, went skydiving and was disappointed when weather canceled her scheduled swim with sharks.

Characteristically, the young entrepreneur also jumped without fear into her latest venture. Cao even named her restaurant on theme, picking two Korean words that, to an English speaker's ear, sound like "don't worry," she noted with a grin.

Originally from Vietnam, Cao started working in hospitality when she moved to Australia for college at age 17. In 2022, she came to Vermont, where her mother was living, and held a bank job while moonlighting at Winooski's Mandarin restaurant.

Cao was putting in 60 to 70 hours weekly. "I thought, I may as well work for myself," she said.

The international business major surveyed the local restaurant scene and saw an opportunity in Korean food. "I'm not Korean, obviously," Cao said, "but I worked at a lot of Korean restaurants."

Cao took over the space that was most recently Pho Vo. She refreshed the small room, which seats eight, though business is still largely takeout. Among the dishes, such as kimchi pancakes ($6) and rice cakes called tteokbokki with different sauces ($8.50 to $9.50), Cao said fried chicken is a bestseller.

On a recent Monday, she sold more than 350 wings. "I was completely wiped out," she said.

Wings come six ($16), nine ($22) or 12 pieces ($26) to an order with fries or fried rice cakes; kimchi or coleslaw; and a soda. I'm a big fan of tteokbokki simmered in sauce like long, chewy gnocchi but had never had them fried. "It's a thing," Cao said.

Donwoori's meaty wings start with a six-hour soak in a soy, garlic, onion and paprika marinade and then receive a light dusting of a flour-based mix that fries up thin and crisp. (Cao is working on a gluten-free wing.)

Each wing is double-fried for extra crunch before sauce is added. The mango-chile option combines sriracha with fresh mango and mango purée. For pure sweetness, choose the honey-butter flavor. For an umami bomb, the soy-garlic should do the trick.

I ordered the gochujang, which marries Korea's signature fermented chile paste with a little brown sugar and sesame oil. The wings stayed admirably crisp under the sauce, which leaned sweet despite the menu's chile pepper warning. Heat lovers may want to ask for a heavier dose of gochujang — especially those, like Cao, who relish things that are a little dangerous.

'Have a Crispy Day'

Crispy Burger, 160 N. Winooski Ave., Burlington, 540-0900, pos.chowbus.com/online-ordering/store/14758

During the first week of January, slick branded posters went up in the windows of the long-empty market at the triangular corner of Burlington's North Winooski Avenue and North Street. They promised "good taste" and suggested passersby "have a crispy day."

On January 5, the brightly decorated Crispy Burger restaurant opened, and online chatter increased. Was this new restaurant part of a chain? And why was it called Crispy Burger when the menu focused on fried chicken in various forms and not burgers, which aren't usually crispy anyway?

On my recent visit, a thorough perusal of the menu revealed a "signature crispy chicken burger" ($6.50), though it appears to be very similar to a fried chicken sandwich. Happy to put one question to rest, I ordered the more novel whole fried chicken ($13.99) and chatted up the restaurateur to learn more about the business while I waited.

It turns out that this Crispy Burger, opened by married couple Yan Feng and Jason Lin, is a franchise of a small New York City-based chain. Like Feng and Lin, the chain's founders are originally from China. This explained the Chinese on the menu and the New York phone number on the Crispy Burger bags.

Feng and Lin live with their children in South Burlington. They own the building at 160 North Winooski as well as Volcano Asian Cuisine on North Avenue. After considering several restaurant ideas, said Lin, 40, he settled on Crispy Burger because "I don't see many choices for lunch in the neighborhood."

My whole small chicken emerged from the kitchen butterflied flat like a book with a crackling golden crust. I found the seasoning fairly neutral and enjoyed the soft meat and its crispy sheath best after amply sprinkling it with a chile-cumin seasoning mix that Lin offered to me along with prepackaged sauces, such as barbecue and ranch, and a housemade sweet chile sauce.

As he juggled a constant stream of orders, Lin said he already has regulars and will soon add bubble tea. He added that he and Feng hope to open multiple locations of Crispy Burger in Vermont.

Farm-Fried

Maple Wind Farm, 1149 E. Main St., Richmond, 322-3739, maplewindfarm.com

Last year was Maple Wind Farm's 25th raising livestock on pasture — or, as farmer and co-owner Beth Whiting said with a chuckle, "25 clucking years."

Whiting, her husband, Bruce Hennessey, and their team sell lots of chicken, along with pastured beef, pork and seasonal turkeys. From June through early November 2023, Maple Wind raised 13,000 meat birds, moving them to fresh grass daily.

Maple Wind runs its own U.S. Department of Agriculture poultry processing facility and sells most of its meat raw. But in 2018, the farm started doing occasional on-site fried chicken dinners "to help our community come to see the farm and how we raise the animals," Whiting, 55, said.

Since the pandemic, the dinners have gone the takeout route; for the past year, they've been offered monthly. In January, Maple Wind changed the format. Instead of single-serve dinners, Whiting said, the farm now offers buckets for sharing (from $40 for 16 wings), with corn bread ($1 per piece) and coleslaw ($7.50 per pint) side options. A new mix of drumsticks and wings helps move chicken parts that don't sell as fast.

The original fried chicken recipe, developed by former Maple Wind poultry processing manager and trained chef Billy Person, remains unchanged — and happens to be naturally gluten-free. I recall crunching very happily through several pieces at an on-farm dinner a few years ago.

The process involves a buttermilk brine and a dredge made with Charlotte-grown Nitty Gritty Grain cornmeal and a proprietary spice blend. Hot from the fryer, the chicken is anointed with maple syrup and sea salt.

Repeat customer Karen Hergesheimer of Essex Junction said she and her family are happy to order fried chicken in whichever form Maple Wind wants to sell it.

"It's crispy, sweet and cooked to perfection every time," she said. "The takeout option is great for busy families, and it's such a valuable lesson for my kids to see where their food comes from."