It’s been awhile since I did a food-focused blog.
Usually, these happen around holiday time. Since I’m skipping knitting tonight – I’m just wiped out – I’m going to go ahead and write about fried chicken. That’s right, I said fried chicken. Not the most interesting topic, perhaps, but we made fried chicken yesterday and I finally remembered to document the process.
- Cut up a whole chicken. You can buy parts, but it’s more expensive for the total chicken, not to mention that when chickens are raised for “parts” they have exaggerated features. For example, the breast portions are gargantuan in some of those packs. The pieces shouldn’t be ginormous for frying. Joy of Cooking and Cook’s Illustrated have good descriptions on how to cut up a raw chicken, but I finally overcame my trepidation from watching Alton Brown dismantle a chicken on Good Eats.
- Brine. We brine our frying chicken in buttermilk overnight. It gives a nice fresh taste to the meat after it’s cooked, plus helps it stay juicy. Rinse the buttermilk off the chicken and pat dry with paper towels.
- Fry up some bacon. The grease adds flavor to the frying oil. We use an electric skillet for this kind of work.
- Make up a dredge with seasoned flour. Cajun seasoning blend makes a nice addition to a simple flour dredge.
- Dredge the pieces in the seasoned flour. Shake off excess.
- Heat the oil with about 1/2 cup of bacon fat. In the electric skillet, we set the heat to a little under 350, but that ended up being a bit hot. You want to try to keep the oil around 325ish during cooking.
- Gently introduce the chicken to the fat, skin side down. Cook covered for 9 minutes, then uncover and cook for 6 minutes.
- Flip the chicken pieces. Cover and cook for 5 minutes, then uncover and cook for 3-7 more minutes, turning in the last few minutes to maintain browning.
- Remove the chicken to a draining rig. Check internal temperature to make sure you’re not going to poison anyone – temperature should be at least 165, though not too much higher than that or it’ll be dry. The brining helps cushion against overcooking somewhat.
Yum.