Fried Chicken: Cook-Off 5

[fifi]

I just caught the end of the show. It will repeat April 9 at 8pm ET/PT. I now have a sticky note on the TV.

I checked his recipe on the FTV site and it looks pretty straight forward. But the written recipe is minus his usual niggling techniques. I wish I had seen the beginning to get a look at his buttermilk. He does say to fry at 325 and not let the shortening get above that. I wonder if he cycles the chicken pieces in like Aunt Minnie did so that the temperature doesn't drop. He also uses less shortening than she did but that probably isn't significant. He does call for an internal temperature of 180. Yikes.

[Marlene]

Oh. My. God. Fried chicken heaven. First the pics:

Just out of the buttermilk soak

Then I sprinkled the seasoning directly on the chicken. I'm not a very good sprinkler. The seasonins is a mix of paprika, chilli powder, kosher salt, pepper and a little garlic powder.

I threw the extra seasoning into the flour and floured up the chicken. I don't have any paper bags, we can't get them up here so I used a ziplock bag. (note: if you southern gentlemen are still considering sending me a southern care package, please add a good supply of paper bags )

I used crisco shortening and I had some bacon grease so I threw that in too and heated the oil to 325. Do you have any idea how hard it was to get that thermometer to stay upright?

Fried Chicken Heaven

Oh man. This was heaven. The crust was shatteringly crisp and it was moist and tender inside.

Like Fifi, I had trouble maintaining the temp. I put the first batch in, and the temp dropped to 300 and never really recovered, but it didn't seem to matter.

I noticed that it seemed to take less time to cook in shortening than it did when I did this in oil for my blog. All in all, each batch took a little over 10 minutes. Total. I used the instant read thermometer and took the pieces out at 160.

I noticed this crust was thinner than when I did Brooks' recipe this way.

Now that means I'm going to have to do another batch using Brooks' recipe on Sunday so I can compare the two. I know, I know, I said I was going to make Brooks' but I didn't. Everyone seemed so insistent on the buttermilk thing that I went back to Dave's recipe for this.

Oh a note: I used tongs to take the chicken out of the pan. It's really not a good idea to put tongs fresh out of hot shortening in your mouth to nibble off the crispy piece that got stuck there.

[Marlene]

Good question, Marlene. Aunt Minnie would put it on trays in a barely warm oven. As I remember, she put a paper bag down on a baking sheet and just loosely lay one on top of it. We all liked our chicken just warm, not "piping hot." But I have no idea how long you could hold it like that, but I am pretty sure a couple of hours wouldn't hurt anything.

I rewarmed a thigh for lunch today in my DeLongi convection oven set to convection and 250 for about 20 minutes and that worked really well. It didn't seem any different than freshly cooked. I like it cold but was curious as to how the DeLongi would do.

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I held it at 170 in the oven for two hours. I've just taken it out and it doesn't seem to be harmed although I haven't tasted it to see if it dried out at all. Hubby's still not home, but I was afraid to leave it in there any longer. If he ever comes home, he can eat it cold

[patti]

Thanks for posting the pics. It looks scrumptious, Marlene.

Room temp fried chicken is good, as is cold, so your hubby should still get an enjoyable meal out of it.

[peanutgirl]

Here's my chicken expo. The kitchen was a mess... but it was oh so good!

Chicken soaking in a seasoned buttermilk bath.

Thighs dredged in flour using the same seasoning mixture.

Lazer Thermometer used to spot check oil temperature... CAUTION: NOT FOR USE ON CHILDREN !

Fried fish (whiting I think... it was in the freezer) for "vegetarian" daughter that will eat seafood . Same buttermilk/ seasoning/flour ingredients. Ignore the nibbled off sample please, had to make sure she wouldn't get sick .

Drum sticks singing to me!

Thighs...1/2 way there. Only 6 more to go.

Corn Bread.

Coleslaw.

My version of country or cream gravy. I am from NJ, so cut me some slack.

Done!

Dessert...We're not Irish (not that there's anything wrong with that), but I had to bake for my Kindergarten son's class and we had extra.

One more close up of the chicken, lest I've bored you with all the other stuff !

Edited March 18, 2005 by peanutgirl (log)

[helenjp]

Kara-age chicken, depfried, looks a bit anemic in the photo???

3 types of fried chicken, L to R...

*yogurt/sour milk marinade, airdried crust, shallow-fried with cover. Yellowish color due to turmeric and other spices.

*yogurt/sour milk marinade, airdried crust, shallow-fried with cover. Oil temp too hot...

*Dorothy's chicken. Shallow-fried with cover. Very crisp crust, bit oily due to frying in oil rather than fat.

Really appreciated seeing everybody's pix and comparing different steps. (Sorry about picture quality, just started using different editing software). I think I used more oil than some, even for shallow-frying.

[Susan in FL]

Wow! Y'all's chicken looks sooooo good! I hope mine turns out that pretty. Thanks for all the photos and details.

[mizducky]

Today Alton Brown's Good Eats is all about buttermilk soaked fried chicken! I wish I'd known ahead of time so I could've taped it. I'm watching it now, and it's very educational.

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I just caught the end of the show. It will repeat April 9 at 8pm ET/PT. I now have a sticky note on the TV.

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And if you can't wait for the re-run, or just want the text transcript to refer to, you can find that here.

For what it's worth: Using Brown's method was my previous and only foray into fried chicken-making, a few years back. Somehow my crust got overly dark, but I think that had more to do with "operator error" than the method (trouble maintaining temperature on an especially balky electric range). Yeah, his finished-chicken internal temp does seem a bit high, though he does have a rationale for that decision which he explains (along with all his other usual copious explanations) in the transcript.

Edited March 18, 2005 by mizducky (log)

[patti]

One more close up of the chicken, lest I've bored you with all the other stuff  !

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Oh. My. God. Perfection! (I had to look at it one more time, myself.)

[patti]

Your chicken looks pretty darn awesome, too, Helen. I am so impressed by all of the variations you tried. Which one tasted the best?

[patti]

And if you can't wait for the re-run, or just want the text transcript to refer to, you can find that here.

For what it's worth: Using Brown's method was my previous and only foray into fried chicken-making, a few years back. Somehow my crust got overly dark, but I think that had more to do with "operator error" than the method (trouble maintaining temperature on an especially balky electric range). Yeah, his finished-chicken internal temp does seem a bit high, though he does have a rationale for that decision which he explains (along with all his other usual copious explanations) in the transcript.

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Thanks for the link, MizDucky. I've bookmarked it for future reference.

[fifi]

I just got back from my local Randall's market. They had whole chickens labeled as fryers. They were at the very lightest 4.2 pounds, and at the most porky at 5.38 pounds.

These are fryers?

[patti]

Have fryers become bigger in response to our need for everything to be super-sized?

[helenjp]

Which one tasted the best?

Funny you should ask that I was just logging on to record the results of the Hungry Boys Cold Chicken for Lunch Taste Test.

Dorothy's Chicken won hands down! Dorothy's Chicken was too greasy for me yesterday, but it was certainly the crunchiest today, and the surface wasn't greasy.

The yogurt/buttermilk types were OK, but the coating was softer and lackluster - but still very acceptable - son1 said "I'd want Dorothy's chicken for the lunch, then the other for a little light ( ) snack after lunch"! Maybe the unleavened flour needs tweaking...I know that Japanese kara-age is also supposed to be unleavened, but many, many people swear it's better *with* a little lift. Funnily, th spices and oniony taste that were so nice warm yesterday seemed quite dispensible in today's cold chicken (probably needs to be more highly spiced for eating cold).

Clean-up tip: if you're not going to save the flour, drain the oil from your fryer, leaving the dirty sludgey stuff. Sprinkle the flour into that - flour absorbs a lot of oil, makes clean-up a lot easier. Even left-over batter is good at cleaning greasy pans.

Edited March 18, 2005 by helenjp (log)

[peanutgirl]

Oh. My. God. Perfection! (I had to look at it one more time, myself.)

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Thanks Patti... yours looked delicious too. Everyone's did !

[Rachel Perlow]

Is anyone getting the impression that Susan really likes the backs?

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Wonder if I can find a mutant chicken with two backs!

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Hopefully they aren't from mutant chickens, but I buy a package of chicken backs at my market when stockmaking. No reason you couldn't get them just to add to your batch of fried chicken. Some people get extra drumsticks, you could get extra backs. :)

Oh a note:  I used tongs to take the chicken out of the pan.  It's really not a good idea to put tongs fresh out of hot shortening in your mouth to nibble off the crispy piece that got stuck there.

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Just had to laugh (and sympathize) with that one!

[snowangel]

Rachel, I haven't ever seen packages of backs here. I'll have to start asking around.

[Susan in FL]

I have been getting a kick out of this about the backs... besides stock, the only thing we have used backs for has been crab bait! Now I have a whole new outlook on them.

[Eden]

I'm scheduled to Fry on Sunday, and every time I look at all your pictures I don't know how I'm going to wait that long!

A side bar that hasn't come up yet is biscuits which I'm pretty sure are a must with fried chicken, so here's a link to a previous discussion, and, to go with his fried chicken recipe above, here's Alton's recipe...

Friends are bringing salad so we can pretend to be healthy Now what to do for dessert?

Thanks for the confirmation re the goat yoghurt Helen.

[fifi]

Thanks for those links.

Just to add more fat to the fire, we also discussed biscuits a bit here. I have to admit to dropping the ball on this one. I think I will blame that on lovebenton0's intimidation by biscuit! After seeing her wonderful hunks-o-dough, I lost heart. I mean, you have never seen prettier biscuits. That is my new goal and I really should get back to it.

Perhaps my next try at fried chicken will prod me back into action.

[Marlene]

I also failed at my attempt at biscuts during my blog. There is a discussion of biscuts in there somewhere, but I'm truly too lazy to go find it right now.

[Jake]

I attempted biscuits with my chicken at the beginning of the week, but they go a bit too crispy while I was busy perusing eG. Okay, truthfully, I burned the c%$p out of them!!!

[Mayhaw Man]

I am frying chicken tomorrow. Biscuits too. Even though my family makes giant fun of me, I will make sure to take nerdy food pics of the whole process.

ALong with the chicken I am having lady peas (last pound in the freezer-June/July can't come soon enough), cheese grits and some chess pie for dessert. That, my friends, is as Southern as it gets.

[slkinsey]

What? No okra?!

[Mayhaw Man]

Nah, the okra in the market right now looks like garbage. I am PLANTING okra this weekend as the danger of frost is pretty much over with this far South. Soon there will be fresh pods everywhere.