Or “Why did the Chicken Cross the Road? To get to the other Fried”
Or “The Tricky to get batter to Sticky to some Chicky without it being Icky.”
Or “How to Better Batter A Bird”
Or “Easy chicken? I Fry Foul!”
Here’s a deep dark kitchen secret: fried chicken tastes awesome. It is a dish, that once we got the knack of making, we’ve come back to again and again to tinker and improvise.
My first attempts to fry chicken were inspired by the way my mom made it: pan-frying. I was also inspired by an episode of Good Eats where Alton soaks his chicken in buttermilk overnight, seasons it, coats it in flour, and pan fries it in shortening. He made it look so easy.
Two times in a row we tried it. Results: pretty on the outside and red on the inside. Not good eats, my friend. Managing the oil heat on the fly in a cast iron skillet apparently takes more skill than I possess.
But then, thanks to Ina Garten, I discovered the perfect, no-fail technique for frying chicken. Now that recipe is titled “Oven Fried Chicken,” but be assured… a big vat of oil is involved.
A little sneak peak.
The night before, mixing buttermilk, Tony Chachere seasoning, and some Louisiana Hot Sauce to soak the chicken in.
When mixing a small amount of dry ingredients into a large amount of liquid, its really effective to add a small amount of the liquid first, stir until you have a thick paste or slurry and then add the rest of the liquid. This is so effective I sometimes use this method to add sugar to my coffee so I don’t find a bunch of it sitting at the bottom.
The next day, ready to bread and fry. Those are two baking sheets with parchment paper (for easy cleanup) and racks. In the bowl is one 6 lb bird, cut into 10 pieces. I do NOT suggest buying so large a chicken. If you buy smaller chickens, you’re able to eat more pieces!
A container with flour, salt, and pepper. I put one piece in at a time and shake till coated. Then after I’ve coated all pieces, I go back and do it again. The bits of buttermilk that clump in the flour will stick to the chicken and create the awesome “shaggy” fry coating that’s so great on some fried chicken.
So…. here’s a jar of bacon grease that I have collected and strained throughout the year. Also, we have some lard leftover from another recipe. I know I’m losing some of you at this point, but I jazzed up the canola oil I was frying in with these southern favorites. Completely optional.
With the oven preheated to 350, the chicken gets fried in batches – 3 minutes on each side. I added a little too much oil to the pot leading to more of a “deep-fry” than a “pan-fry.” Also, the lard-bacon grease-canola oil mixture foamed in a way that pure canola oil never has. No worries!
Doesn’t the chicken on the right look awesome? But I assure you, it is raw inside. Here is the magic bit: Now it goes into a 350 oven for 30 minutes. This has several advantages:
1. You know the chicken will be cooked through.
2. It minimizes the time you have to spend babysitting the frying stage.
3. The outside will continue to darken and get crispier in the oven.
4. The oil from the fry stage will drip off the chicken and onto the parchment paper.
6. The 30 minutes that your chicken spends in the oven gives you time to clean up a bit and make yourself a bit more presentable before your guests arrive.
I could probably go on. The long and short of it is this: you get to have homemade fried chicken.
A 6 lb chicken yields some mega pieces! That’s only half of the chicken! Check out how shaggy the pieces are. The parchment paper got a little singed as it was too close to the burner… nothing to do with baking it.
A little fried chicken, roasted broccoli, red quinoa pesto salad and some champagne. Why the hell not!
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