Fried Chicken

I so wish I had taken pics of the fried chicken step by step like I did the coconut cake. Maybe the pictures jinxed the cake, who knows? But the fried chicken turned out wonderful. We don't eat fried chicken much in our household not for the fact that we don't LOVE it, but more that we love our waistlines to be trim (well working on waistlines to be trim ;). I have made from time to time several batches of good fried chicken. Hall's stepdad, David makes excellent fried chicken and I use his recipe. While Hall was in Fallon, Bon Appetit arrived in my mailbox with the cover photo of a perfectly fried drumstick and the caption "Best Fried Chicken Ever." I made it out of curiosity (I test recipes when Hall is gone so he thinks I am amazing when he's home and all he eats is great food.) The chicken was very flavorful, but not crispy like David's. So for Hall's birthday I combined both recipes to make the ultimate fried chicken and I think I succeeded. It's good y'all.

You'll need one 3-3.5 lb whole chicken. Butcher the chicken into 10 pieces (yup 10). If you don't want to butcher it ask your butcher to do it, but I get a weird pleasure out of butchering my own meat and it's really very simple. Bon Appetit has fantastic step by step picture directions here. David's gripe with fried chicken and making it these days is the size of the breasts and even the birds at the super market. They are too big. In our societies craze of producing more meat and larger portions we've forgone on the taste and created super birds, and it's disastrous, that's another blog. The way Bon Appetit combats this that I find interesting is they butcher an entire chicken and cut the breasts in half. So you end up with 4 breast pieces, 2 legs, 2 wings, and 2 thighs. It's plenty to feed 4-6 people, and the breasts actually cook pretty well.

Place all your chicken pieces into a large bowl and toss with 2tbsp kosher salt, 2 tsp black pepper, 1 1/4 tsp paprika, 3/4 tsp cayenne pepper, 1/2 tsp garlic powder, & 1/2 tsp onion powder. Toss to combine and make sure all chicken pieces are well coated and covered with spices. Place bowl in the fridge for 24-48 hours. 48 is better. The seasonings get down to the bone, seriously and make for a spicy chicken. Delicious.

Here's where I diverge from Bon Appetit and follow David a little more. After 48 hours pour in buttermilk into the bowl until all chicken is covered with it. Let it sit out on the counter for 1-2 hours. I prefer 2.

Pull out a cast iron skillet and fill it with 1-2 inches of canola oil. Heat the oil over medium heat. Once you stick a wooden spoon into the oil and it starts to bubble around the wood, the oil is ready. Place 2-3 cups all purpose flour in a brown paper bag along with a little more salt and some more paprika. Toss your chicken in the bag, roll down the top of the bag to close it and give it a good shake (over the sink). Pull out 5 pieces of chicken and put them in the oil. Turn every 2 minutes. Wings and legs take 10 minutes, breasts and thighs take 12. Pull chicken out and let cool on a wire rack over a sheet pan. I think a wire rack is important to keep it crispy. You can disagree with me, your entitled to it. ;) Fry the second batch of chicken. Once all the chicken is done wait 5 minutes, then dig into the best tasting most delicious chicken you have ever put in your mouth. If you try it let me know how it turns out and what you thought. We were all fans in this household!