Southern Style Fried Chicken

Today was a rare day in for this blog. A person can't eat out every day of the week and maintain the trim physique you can't prove I don't have. I decided to cook dinner at home today. Having a whole day off means having enough time to properly brine some meat and the two best kinds of meat in the summer are barbecued anything, and southern fried chicken.

You may know how important brining is if you're a bit of a foodie, but if not, you need to. Yes it takes time, but its totally worth it. And really, it only takes a few extra minutes at the beginning and end of the process. Make a brine from salt and spices and put your meat in. Done. (Then wait several hours.) Then lift out the meat and put it on a rack to dry. Done. Again. (More waiting.) Then cook with it. People will marvel at how moist and delicious it is. It works for any poultry, as well as anything you're going to roast for a while. In my case, since this is souther style fried chicken, I used buttermilk instead of water for the brine. Lots of garlic, and a little sugar and so on. Put it all in a big non-reactive pot (Don't use those fancy copper ones,) and go outside for a bit.

Salt, Sugar, Red Pepper, Garlic and Bay

Having a day off in the summer in this neighborhood means you could start this whole process, and go for an afternoon beer. Set an alarm on your phone, and enjoy a game at a bar or some people watching at a cafe. Pick up your dry-cleaning. Buy stuff to eat and drink with your amazing meal you're about to enjoy in a few hours.

After brining for 3 hours, drying on a rack for 2 more

Stop back at the apartment and pull the chicken out of the brine. Let it drain on a rack over something to catch drippings for a few more hours. Go see a movie at the Pavilion if you hate yourself, or watch some Netflix if you don't.

Dredged in flour, then an egg mixture, then flour again

Finally, time to deep fry! I dredged the still buttermilk-y chicken in flour, then an egg mixture, then more flour. Two times in the flour, both before and after the egg, keeps the crunchy coating more firmly attached to the chicken so it doesn't break off easily while you're frying or lifting or moving it.

Deep Fryin' in shortening in an old cast iron Dutch oven

A cast iron dutch oven is the most appropriate and traditional feeling vessel in which to fry your chicken. (I could extoll the virtues of good cast iron all day, but this is just about the chicken.) Shortening has basically no flavor, so it lets you fry without adding anything you don't want to the taste of the meat and the batter.

Finally a deep brown-gold color, almost mahogany in places, I drained the chicken on paper towels. You'll want to get it as dry as you can on the outside. Don't worry; the brining made sure that it's super moist inside. When my lovely companion and I finally bit through the surprisingly light and crispy outer shell, the chicken inside was juicy, tangy from the buttermilk, flavorful from the salt and spices, and dripping with it's own juice. Actual slurping noises echoed through the apartment, frightening cats and probably causing Paula Dean somewhere to cock her head to the side and listen. Try making it like this, and you'll look forward to every day off.

-SdJ

Draining on paper towels