Fried Chicken: Cook-Off 5

[fifi]

 

. . . . .

Brooks' Chicken

Dorothy’s Fried Chicken

. . . . .

←

There wer these earlier that I just noticed.

. . . . .

Better than your Grandma’s Creamed Gravy

. . . . .

←

Then this one. They aren't showing up as links on my screen.

[Marlene]

no, they aren't supposed to be links.i've posted the whole recipe.

[artisan02]

So get our your cast iron skillets or deep fryers, digital cameras, grease splatter screens, a bird or two, flour, buttermilk, and way, way more fat, grease, and/or oil than you should consume in a month -- and start fryin'!

←

I will more than likely be joining this one, as I need to relearn how to make the fried chicken I grew up eating in Richmond, VA.

I made it so many times under my mother's tutelage, and now, that I am 40 or more years past that time, I have lost the way to making good fried chicken.

She always pan fried it, and only did the dredging in flour with salt and pepper added. I seem to remember her using a lid on the pan at some point.

So, my method will more than likely be pan frying, and I will do it til I get it right again.

[fifi]

no, they aren't supposed to be links.i've posted the whole recipe.

←

Oh . . . Duh!

I just checked with my sister. She doesn't remember getting instructions or recipes from Aunt Minnie, Grandma or our mother. We just recalls that they added the seasoned flour from the paper sack to the more or less drained pan and added milk until it "looked right." She has the same experience as I do. Sometimes it is pretty good, and we don't know why. More often it is just ok. We are now suspecting that this was a ploy to keep the descendants humble.

[artisan02]

There's no better inspiration for cleaning up a cast-iron frying pan than fried chicken! Scour that pan. Have it sand-blasted if necessary! Season it well and enjoy it for years to come. I believe that it was Andiesenji who told us about inheriting a cast-iron pan from her grandmother, who in turn inherited it from her grandmother. A rusty old pan turns into an heirloom when treated with respect. 

←

I am kicking myself right now, cause when I put a lot of my kitchen stuff into storage to become a traveling nurse, I packed up my wonderful cast iron skillet. It had a wonderful patina on it, but it wasn't something I was going to use that much in traveling and I had to only bring the things I would be using a lot. Most pans have to do double duty, even triple duty.

So since I don't have a cast iron skillet with me, I have to figure out which pan will work best for this. I do have a Le Crueset buffet pan and All-Clad saute pans with me, so guess one of those will have to do.

[Jake]

Fried chicken tonight it is. I will be using Brooks' recipe and hoping for the best -- I have faith, the gumbo recipe was awesome. However, I have only attempted pan fried chicken twice before, both times as a teenager, early twenties a number of years ago. Both experiences were horiffic....trust me. Just in case, I'll be serving the chicken with black-eyed peas, greans and sweet potato biscuits. I shall report back, providing I don't burn the house down.

[Chris Amirault]

Holy cow. This is going great gangbusters! I'm glad that there's a lot of action, since I'm about to go on a brief eGullet hiatus while Andrea brings our daughter Bebe into the world of oral (as opposed to umbilical) pleasures. Induction's set for Thursday, so it might be a week before you hear from me.

I'm wonderin' whether crispy fried chicken skin is a good supplement to breast milk for a newborn...!

[torakris]

any recipes that don't use buttermilk? There is no buttermilk in Japan.

←

Kris and others: it's easy to create a substitute "buttermilk" by placing one tablespoon of lemon juice or distilled white vinegar in a measuring cup and adding enough whole milk to make one cup. Let it stand for 10 minutes in the fridge before using. Not tasty enough to drink, but plenty good enough for fried chicken marinade. I prefer the lemon juice version.

I'm so curious...why no buttermilk in Japan?

←

proabably because the Japanese traditonally were not big consumers of dairy and it never played a part in their traditonal diet, even today they don't really bake or make the kind of things that buttermilk is used in....

I don't think I have yet met a Japanese person who has even heard of buttermilk, and of course it isn't exactly something that can be easily imported.

So I make do without, I do the milk and lemon juice thing and find it works for most baked goods but you just can't use it for salad dressings, soups, etc

[SobaAddict70]

Don't forget to include a discussion of that temple to fried chicken, Stroud's.

Soba

[Marlene]

Mine is set for tomorrow night or Thursday night I think. Jake, when using Brooks recipe I'm going to sprinkle the spices right onto the chicken a la Dave's method instead of mixing them with the flour. I found when I did it the other way with Brooks chicken, the spices didn't come through the way I'd hoped.

[artisan02]

However, I have only attempted pan fried chicken twice before, both times as a teenager, early twenties a number of years ago.  Both experiences were horiffic....trust me. 

←

The last few times I tried to recreate the fried chicken of my youth, it wasn't the same. It was bland, among other things and didn't have that elusive 'something" that I remember.

I don't remember if my mother used bacon grease or not, but since we usually had a can of it for cooking purposes, I wouldn't be surprised. The last times I made fried chicken, I didn't use that and used regular vegetable oil. The taste wasn't the same as that fried chicken from my youth.

[Jake]

Mine is set for tomorrow night or Thursday night I think.  Jake, when using Brooks recipe I'm going to sprinkle the spices right onto the chicken a la Dave's method instead of mixing them with the flour.  I found when I did it the other way with Brooks chicken, the spices didn't come through the way I'd hoped.

←

Thanks for the tip, Marlene - I'll try it that way.

[torakris]

I think I am going to shallow fry, talk to me about the oil!

I do not have access to bacon grease and the only bottle of peanut oil I have ever found here was completely flavorless....

I do have a container of crisco and I always have canola oil, what is your favorite oil for shallow frying fried chicken?

and on a related note how much do you use?

I noticed Brooks recipe called for 1 inch

[Jake]

However, I have only attempted pan fried chicken twice before, both times as a teenager, early twenties a number of years ago.  Both experiences were horiffic....trust me. 

←

The last few times I tried to recreate the fried chicken of my youth, it wasn't the same. It was bland, among other things and didn't have that elusive 'something" that I remember.

I don't remember if my mother used bacon grease or not, but since we usually had a can of it for cooking purposes, I wouldn't be surprised. The last times I made fried chicken, I didn't use that and used regular vegetable oil. The taste wasn't the same as that fried chicken from my youth.

←

The fried chicken of my youth was only eaten down south while on family holidays. I still love it more than almost anything. The closest thing my mother came to fried chicken was Shake 'n Bake, but even that was better than my previous attempts. Think burned and bloody all at once! However, that was many years ago before any prof. training and not too much experimenting.

[Hector]

As long as I known the recipe(s) for frying chicken doing the american way. I have always wondered why you put it in buttermilk? what does the buttermilk do?

Here in Sweden, we fill the fried chicken with parsely butter, and serve it with it, along with a cream sauce, and pickled but fresh cucumbers.. Along with new-potatoes. All coated with tons of parsley! aah.. delicious.

[Jake]

Will not be serving sweet potato biscuits with the chicken. Burned the s*^t out of them 'cause I was busy playing on eGullet. SO killing himself laughing and hoping it's not a portent of things to come....may find another use for that skillet shortly....besides making cornbread to replace the biscuits.

[PurpleDingo99]

I might have to try that little recipe i made up again. Marinading, brasing, and then frying actually works brilliantly. soy, honey, chipotle, and lime make a fantastic combination.

[fifi]

Hector . . . That sounds really interesting. Is the chicken breaded or floured? How on earth do you stuff a piece of chicken with parsley butter. Hmm . . . that could lead to all sorts of herby mayhem.

I am suspecting that the reason a lot of you don't find the same taste and texture of your youth is that you are trying to fry in oil. You can do it, it just isn't the same. And, IMHO, not nearly as good.

For the chicken of memories, the fat choices are: Crisco, Crisco with some percentage of bacon grease, or if you are lucky enough to have it, fresh lard. The other trick is temperature. Get a thermometer. You will not regret it. Most recipes have you bring the temperature up to 375 F, add in chicken one piece at a time, try to keep cooking temperature at 350F. You gain some in technique if you let the chicken get some of the chill off before flouring and frying.

[snowangel]

OK. Some questions.

Brook's recipe is soaked with water with baking soda. Other's in buttermilk. What's the difference?

And, should the chicken air dry after flouring before frying?

Finally, I can hold my head up now. I have a cast iron skillet. Can't do chicken tomorrow night, but me thinks that I don't have enough bacon grease, so perhaps we should have bacon, eggs and waffles for supper tomorrow.

[Marlene]

Hector . . . That sounds really interesting. Is the chicken breaded or floured? How on earth do you stuff a piece of chicken with parsley butter. Hmm . . . that could lead to all sorts of herby mayhem. 

This sounds very much like chicken kiev!

For the chicken of memories, the fat choices are: Crisco, Crisco with some percentage of bacon grease, or if you are lucky enough to have it, fresh lard. The other trick is temperature. Get a thermometer. You will not regret it. Most recipes have you bring the temperature up to 375 F, add in chicken one piece at a time, try to keep cooking temperature at 350F. You gain some in technique if you let the chicken get some of the chill off before flouring and frying.

For the first time ever, I actually have bacon grease in the fridge. And I have crisco. I'm all set. Oh wait. Crisco shortening or crisco oil?

[Marlene]

OK.  Some questions.

Brook's recipe is soaked with water with baking soda.  Other's in buttermilk. What's the difference?

And, should the chicken air dry after flouring before frying?

Finally, I can hold my head up now.  I have a cast iron skillet.  Can't do chicken tomorrow night, but me thinks that I don't have enough bacon grease, so perhaps we should have bacon, eggs and waffles for supper tomorrow.

←

Susan, we can do this together on Thursday and compare pictures!

Don't ask me what the difference is between the two methods. I just follow instructions.

[Toliver]

Previous argument...er...discussion of pan-frying versus deep frying chicken:

"The Fried Chicken Debate: Deep Fried or Pan Fried?, Consistent Quality vs. Risky Excellence" with info about pans, fat and frying (that quickly veers off-topic).

fifi did post her fried chicken recipe in it with tips added.

Another tip: use a splatter screen, if you can.

[fifi]

Crisco shortening.

Uh oh . . . I just remembered that Crisco has a new product out that is supposed to not contain transfats. I would prefer that for health reasons but I have never tried it. Perhaps I will since I know how the old Crisco is supposed to come out and can possibly make a comparison.

I think I remember reading somewhere else here that the "new" Crisco behaves like the old. Maybe that was in Pastry and Baking.

I am off to the store to get my stuff. I will have to fry off (actually bake off) some bacon since I see that my supply of bacon grease is low. Bacon sandwiches later tonight.

I have never tried Brooks' method. It sounds very different. It would be interesting to compare so I am hoping one of you tries it. I am going to do the traditional buttermilk. I don't know what the buttermilk does as to tenderization. Maybe the little bit of acid does that. Most recipes say to marinate for at least 24 hours. One thing I am sure of is that it makes a fairly substantial crust. The buttermilk forms a fairly stabile film on the chicken pieces that does not easily drip off before flouring.

[Marlene]

Brooks' pan fried on the left, Dave's deep fried on the right. The crust as I recall was definately thicker on Brooks recipe than the deep fried one, although Brooks's recipe doesn't call for a buttermilk marinade.

Now, I fried his in oil last time. On Thursday, I'll use shortening and bacon grease and see what happens.

[patti]

Mine is set for tomorrow night or Thursday night I think.  Jake, when using Brooks recipe I'm going to sprinkle the spices right onto the chicken a la Dave's method instead of mixing them with the flour.  I found when I did it the other way with Brooks chicken, the spices didn't come through the way I'd hoped.

←

When I fry shrimp or crawfish, I always season both the ingredient AND the flour. That way, there's no chance anything will remain unseasoned. I'll probably do it that way when I fry the chicken, which will likely be on Wednesday night.