Fried Chicken: Not Actually Hard To Make

From Ta-Nehisi, and all so very true:

Not that I'm able to make much these days. Still, when I was kid and first learned my way around the kitchen, the sense was that part of the beauty of fried chicken  was its simplicity--some flour, egg, salt, pepper, and maybe some kind of herbalism. If you were fancy you had thyme, but most negroes were fine with Season-All. Hook up some potato salad real quick, and you were on.

These days, when I look up a fried chicken recipe it tends to be a 48-hour affair including brining, buttermilk, bay-leaves, and double-binding.  When did this happen? Were we all eating bad fried chicken as kids? Is this a nefarious plan to get us to cut back on fatty foods? It's definitely working. The one advantage of all these new and complicated recipes, is that they're so much work, that I can only see myself frying a chicken once a decade.

1. Put some flour, salt and pepper and a tiny but of cayenne in a empty Piggly Wiggly* plastic bag.
2. Put a few pieces of raw chicken in there and shake it around till they're coated.
3. Get the deep, melted Crisco, or lard, or even peanut oil in a cast-iron Dutch oven so bubbling hot that you start to worry about fatal burns. My dad always taught me to let a piece of stale bread fry in there while it heats so it doesn't blow up in some unspecified way (a superheated bubble from underneath bursts to the surface?), and while I don't know if this is true, I've never dared skip it, so...
4. Fry the chicken. Don't crowd the pan too bad. Turn it over and fry it till the other side is golden too.
5. Let it stay warm in a merely warm oven on a bunch of paper towels until the rest is done.
6. Eat it. It is also good cold for a picnic.
*Not actually crucial.

Comments

[Gene Callahan]

Crisco is horrifically bad for you -- lard is much better.

[southpaw]

Can't tell you how happy I am that you're back, Belle.

A question. Realizing of course that deep frying is in its essence an unhealthy process, is there any oil/cooking fat that is relatively healthy (cf. crisco or lard) and has a high enough smoke point for deep frying?

[MaryLou]

So glad you're back and in excellent form I must say.

[Belle Waring]

I know melted Crisco is horribly bad for you, but it tastes better than plain vegetable oil and lard can be hard to find. And truthfully, I grew up using melted Crisco, so... Same for biscuits. I can retro-engineer with some butter or whatever but it judt doesn't taste like biscuits to me. Plain vegetable oil, however, is OK. so for a healthier option go with Wesson oil or whatnot.

[ajay]

I think you put the bit of stale bread in there to gauge the temperature of the oil - ie how long does it take for the bread to turn brown and rise to the surface of the oil.

[LizardBreath]

I thought Crisco was okay once you buy the 'no trans fats' kind. Is there anything else wrong with it?

[R. Stanton Scott]

I use a paper bag for coating.

And a cast iron skillet with about an inch of oil for frying--not deep fried, and you can cook more at once if you get a big skillet. Works well in an electric skillet, too (this was Nana's cooker of choice for this).

Peanut and sunflower oils work well--peanut gives a nice nutty flavor--but almost anything will work except olive oil. It's OK to fry the chicken slowly as long as you make sure it's done, so smoke point needn't be an issue.

Mom makes the best fried chicken. This is our Alzheimer's test: when her FC skills get weak, it's time to find a secure facility.

[ben]

Belle's eyes: pure white, with no iris or pupil?