Vanessa Daou of
Our Tips:
1. Several pieces of celery -- leaves and all -- in the frying oil helps chicken taste better and develop a richer color.2. Soaking the chicken overnight in buttermilk or brine makes for juicier, more tender meat.
3. Covering the chicken after it's been fried will cause it to lose its crispiness.
4. Drain cooked chicken on a metal rack or a brown paper bag rather than on paper towels. It will retain more crispiness.
5. To avoid dangerous spattering, dry off utensils before they come into contact with the cooking oil.
6. Use tongs rather than a fork to turn chicken pieces, so as to avoid piercing the skin and losing juices.
7. If you usually rely on vegetable oil, try peanut for a change. It's got a higher smoke point and imparts great flavor.8. Slice whole poultry breasts in half for quicker, more even cooking.
Wedding Fried Chicken
(adapted from The Gift of Southern Cooking, Barefoot Contessa Family Style, and The Black Cat Cafe & Bakery)
3 lbs chicken pieces
1 quart buttermilk
1 lb lard (or Crisco if necessary)
1 stick unsalted butter
1/2 cup thickly-cut, uncooked smoked bacon, sliced into 1/2 inch pieces
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tbsp cornstarch
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper (freshly ground)
Brine the chicken for 8-12 hours. (See our article on brining) Rinse off the chicken and bowl. Return the chicken to the bowl, and cover it with buttermilk. Let it rest covered in the refrigerator for another 8-12 hours. Remove the chicken and drain it on a wire rack.
While the chicken is draining, place the lard, butter and bacon pieces in a wide, heavy stockpot, and cook over low heat for 30-45 minutes, until the butter stops foaming. Skim throughout as needed. Carefully remove bacon pieces, and set aside for another use.
Thoroughly mix together flour, cornstarch, salt and pepper in a bowl, and dredge the drained chicken pieces until all surfaces are covered. Lightly pat to set the coating and tap off excess flour.
Raise fat temperature to medium-high (360 F), and carefully place several chicken pieces in the fat, skin-side down, taking care not to let them touch. Work in batches if necessary. Allow fat to return to 360 F between batches.
Fry for 8-10 minutes until skin is golden-brown and the meat is thoroughly cooked. Remove from pot, drain on a wire rack or a crumpled brown paper bag, and serve.
OR
Cook for 3-4 minutes on each side, remove from pot, and drain on a wire rack or a crumpled brown paper bag. You can at this point refrigerate the chicken, or continue on to the next step. Before you're ready to serve, pre-heat your oven to 350 F. Place chicken on a wire baking rack on top of a sheet pan, and bake for 30-40 minutes, or until skin is crisped and meat is thoroughly cooked.
Back To Guilty Pleasures: Fried Chicken
Get More Fried Chicken Recipes
How To Cook Chicken
6-27-2008 @3:42PM brandie said... Fried chicken is a delicious treat no matter how you season it!! My favorite way is to season with onion powder, garlic powder, salt, pepper and a generous shake of paprika for the flour. Salt real good and soak in buttermilk overnight (this makes even the toughest bird fork-tender!) so the salt needs time to soak in for flavor. four hours will do too if you wake up with a hankerin' for bird. make sure your oil is hot before you fry and enjoy!! By the way, the cave men survived on animal fat which adds more flavor if you ask me. Old people have been eating this stuff for a long time so leave Crisco !!!
Reply
10-18-2008 @8:28AM stephen50 said... House of Autry coating mix is about as good as it gets. MSG brings out flavor. Deep fryer works well.
Reply
3-01-2009 @1:40AM nick said... My mom was from west va. and so was her mom. they cooked chicken with lard, i sometimes cook it with lard too and then make flour gravy from some of the grease, i do drain a lot of it when i make the gravy, the chicken , i just make sure it is wet and dredged it in flour and bread crumbs, and i cook it in a cast iron skillet, now the skillit is the secret to cooking chicken or any meat, as long as you have it broke in. i am 60 years old, yes i had a heart attack 3rd one at 57 almost killed me. was 170 lbs and delivering mail, was walking 4 to 12 miles a day, but i smoked and i think that and a few other things let to the attack in 2006. but i think our children and their children are getting the worse food they can eat from the fast food joints, and they are in for a lot of problems, health wise, i am gonna try that wedding recipie, sounds good, since i am retired and on disability i do a lot of cooking when i can for me and the wife and when our daughter is over, i love to cook, but moderation is the best method in cooking fried foods,
Reply
5-30-2009 @5:51PM Billl said... I have been wanting to fry chicken in my Pressure cooker for years now. But I can't find anyone to advise me how to do this. T.Noble mentioned he uses a pressure cooker and I wish he would tell me how! somebody please tell me how its done........
Reply
6-02-2009 @3:19AM Allen said... This is a small, but wonderful tip. All of the above (recipe) is perfect but I have had my best results thus: Use an electric skillet!!! Fill with fat so that chicken will not boil over. Cook 5-6 minutes, at 350 degrees turning once, until perfect golden brown color is achieved. Remove chicken to clean newspaper. When skillet is reduced to 240
degrees, return to skillet and fry slowly, turning often, 15-20 minutes. You will retain the crispy golden crust and the meat will be juicy. This is, of course, if you use the brining, buttermilk method. Stuff yourself!!! Allen
Reply
5-30-2009 @7:56PM Marsha Matthews said... I've been cooking fried chicken the same way for over 60 years. I noticed a lot of comments containing a few of my favorites. I would like to mention that I've lived in the South all my life and Southern Fried Chicken really has a lot of variations. But I've found what I think is to me the best recipe. I won't go into detail, but I'll list the necessary ingredients and fixin's. First, plain old Crisco out of the can. You can add a little bacon grease if you have some on hand. Next, an old cast-iron skillet. If you don't have one, a non-stick skillet will do. The main thing is, DON'T use the deep-fry method. The meat needs to be down close to the burner in order to get that brown, crispy crust. When coating the chicken, the last thing to do is sprinkle the coating with paprika. This imparts a succulent flavor as well as giving the chicken a deeper, redish-brown crust. After browning on each side, lower the heat, cover, and cook for about 20 minutes + or -. Remove the lid, increase the heat and cook another 5 minutes or so. This will brown any liquid that might escape from the chicken while it's covered. Place the cooked chicken on brown paper bags to drain. If gravy is desired, pour off the excess grease and pour some of the flour that was used to dredge the chicken into the remaining oil with the little browned pieces. As it browns, add diced onion and cook till onion is transparent and flour is desired color. *Add chicken broth or stock, stirring constantly until desired consistency. If desired, one can of Campbell's Cream of Chicken soup may be added. *These are things I've added to my recipe in the past few years. Formerly, I simply added water, salt and pepper.
Reply
8-29-2007 @6:28PM d-lish said... Another point to consider: What kind of chicken to buy? Organic or grain-fed, kosher or whatever's on sale? I, for one, will always go for the kosher bird. If I'm going to go thru the considerable effort to make fried chicken, which I do, I find the kosher ones--due to the salting process--are the best. I know it's not supposed to be necessary with a pre-salted bird, but I still brine the kosher chickens as well. I've tried every type of cooking fat imaginable, but I love peanut oil the best, with a combo of clarified butter and lard coming in a close second. Of course both methods are a pain in their own right: the former because it's expensive and the latter because you've gotta find good quality lard and clarify a whole mess of butter. But like I say, if you're going to make it at home, make the best fried chicken you can. Your friends and family will thank you (and beg you for more).
Reply
9-01-2007 @5:41PM Paul said... I usually purchase a particular brand of frying chicken. Red Bird, here in Colorado. They are smaller frying chickens and when cut up fit in my electric skillet, snugly, but they fit. I cut my own chickens up, Why pay for the cut up chicken, doing it yourself doesn't take rocket science! I use Crisco oil for frying. I dredge the chicken pieces in seasoned flour. (garlic salt, onion salt, paprika, oregano, freshly ground pepper, sage, marjoram) Then after beating 2 eggs with about 1/2 to 3/4 cup whole milk, I dip the pieces in the milk/egg mixture and again, thoroughly dredge the pieces in the flour. While doing this, I pre-heat the oil in the skillet to 350 degrees. About 3/4 of an inch of oil is usually plenty. I place the pieces in the hot oil, carefully, skin side down and fry until light brown, turn each piece over carefully and again fry til light brown. then, lowering the heat to 225 degrees and covering tightly, closing the vent, I allow it to cook for 45 to 55 minutes. About 15 minutes before time is up, I pre heat my oven to 350 degrees. When time in the skillet is over, I place the chicken pieces carefully on a cookie sheet and place in the oven. 20 or so minutes later, serve. it will be crispy, cooked through (I hate poorly cooked chicken, it's slimy and disgusting) and delicious. You can use the oil in the skillet for gravy, if you know how, but that's an entirely different recipe.
Reply
9-01-2007 @3:42PM sue said... Watch it if you buy lard instead of rendering your own -a lot of them put hydrogenated fat in there. That said, lard makes the greatest fried chicken! i do add more that just salt and pepper though, the spices varying by my mood and what's on hand.
Reply
9-01-2007 @6:20PM jamie stephens said... And what would be the fat content of this chicken cooked in lard and bacon grease. My atreries are clogging reading that recipe. Hopefully this is a once a year thing, orh these people are going to have serious weight and health issues.
Reply
9-01-2007 @5:40PM Paul said... I posted my recipe for fried chicken, but I wanted to add a thought. I wouldn't use lard for anything in food. Possibly for axle grease, but that's about all. The very thought of lard in food makes me gag! Does it take a rocket scientist to know that lard equats to clogged arteries, heart attacks, strokes and death!
Reply
9-01-2007 @6:51PM Pat said... Hmmmmmmmmmmmm. Concern over hydrgenated fat in lard??? Lard is pure animal fat - what could be worse, all by itself?
Reply
9-01-2007 @11:19PM Bill Hazel said... I grew up the beautiful South in Mobile, Alabama on the banks of Mobile Bay in the 1930's. Chicken was always thoroughly cleaned, dredged in flour with salt and pepper added and cooked in hot oil until done. Couldn't be beat. It was wonderful, it was great, it was delicious and I still do it the same way today.
Reply
9-01-2007 @8:10PM sue said... Lard is saturated fat. They have ample studies proving hydrogenated is worse than saturated for your heart. Add hydrogenated to saturated and you have one tasty heart attack. So, why wouldn't you make sure you're only indulging in one evil? But hey, knock yourself out, fry your food in some nice GMO soybean oil or nice chemically derived canola.
Reply
9-02-2007 @1:52AM Susan said... I use pancake mix instead of flour, Adds just that something extra that gets raves very time,
Reply
9-02-2007 @3:15PM Larry said... I have just brined the chicken and fried it in peanut oil. I was surprised how good it was. No thick breading on it and it was still tasty. I think it might have been fairly healthy also.
Reply
9-02-2007 @3:51PM sibbi said... Lard is what my mamma used to fry chicken - as did her mother and grandmother before her. They all lived well into their nineties!!! The issue here is not what we use to fry the chicken, it's the amount of times we eat fried foods. Fried chicken was a special treat once or twice a month on Sundays, still is. No one is overweight, or has heart disease. In this country we love to blame the food we eat rather than the bad habits we have when eating it. Everything in moderation and include variety of foods with your fried food, Greeens, beans and lots of water. This countries insistance on BIG meals is what is killing us and making us an obese nation. Now that I'm in the mood for some fried chicken I need to get to the grocery store.
Reply
9-08-2007 @4:07PM Trish said... I make fried chicken once a month...I have too...they would lynch me if I didn't!!! I do want to try this recipe, but I don't think I could get away with using lard...I do make my chicken in peanut oil though...it adds tremendous flavor!
Reply
9-08-2007 @8:19PM vivian madison said... Just once in my life I would LOVE to make EXCELLENT, mouthwatering fried chicken. I will try the wedding fried chicken first and others until I finally get it RIGHT! Thank you
Reply
9-14-2007 @12:02PM T.Noble said... I have tried frying chicken using all types of cooking oils.
For me peanut oil works best but Crisco will do.
I find soaking my chicken in a buttermilk-Soy Sauce pickling solution and refrigerating it for at least 24 hours works very well to add flavor to the meat and in turn help to desolve and neutralize any remaining blood which remains near the bones within the thighs and legs of the bird. I dredge my chicken in all purpose flour with black pepper and lawreys seasoning salt then submit it to a egg-buttermilk bath and drege it back into the flour before frying the chicken in a pressure cooker for eight - ten minutes
Reply