Southern Fried Chicken

[michaelman2]

I think when asked what is my favorite entree it would have to be really well prepared southern fried chicken. Not greasy or heavy, but flavorful, tender, crisp and pan fried NOT deep fried.

I have a recipe that is really a culmination of several recipes and regions, it is truly the best I have ever have eaten. To me fried chicken is to me an "art" or a labor of love. I know that reads as hokey...

When I find a restaurant that can really "throw down" on fried chicken, I find their other items are usually the bomb as well.

When I lived in NY and Chicago this was a Sunday dinner staple. In my experiences during the 1980s, southern foods were still for the most part in the south. When I would cook a Sunday dinner for friends whom were reared in the north, they had never had authentic fried chicken, southern green beans and biscuits. (or they had not had the southern versions of the aforementioned).

Sweetened iced tea was affectionately called "table wine of the south". These guys would eat like they have never eaten before. The fried chicken was something they loved and I loved making it for them...

INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup coarse/kosher salt
1 chicken (3 pounds), cut into 8 pieces
1 quart buttermilk
2 pounds lard (not the Hormel hydrogenated, boxed lard or Crisco) Peanut Oil will suffice if lard is not available. *lard is not as bad for you as you may have been lead to believe and if you can find it at a local butcher or grocer, it is very worth the find.
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
1/2 cup country-ham pieces, or 1 thick slice country ham cut into 1/2-inch strips (thick slab bacon will suffice in a pinch)
1 cup all-purpose flour (White Lilly if available)
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon seasoned salt
Optional for Buttermilk brine: 4 tablespoons Texas Pete or Tobasco

DIRECTIONS
1. In a large bowl, mix together 1 gallon of water and 1 cup salt; stir until salt is dissolved. Add chicken pieces and let stand, refrigerated, 8 to 12 hours.

2. Drain chicken and rinse out bowl. Return chicken to bowl and pour buttermilk over chicken (if you are adding the Texas Pete/Tobasco mix it with the buttermilk and then pour over chicken). Cover bowl and refrigerate 8 to 12 hours. Drain chicken on a wire rack set over a parchment paper-lined baking sheet, discarding buttermilk. Also gently squeeze off the excess buttermilk, you want the piece to be as "dry as possible.

3. Meanwhile, place the lard, butter, and country ham into a large heavy skillet. Cook over low heat, skimming as needed, until butter has stopped foaming and country ham is browned, 30 to 45 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, remove ham and discard. Increase heat to medium-high and heat fat until it reaches 335 degrees on a deep-fry thermometer.

4. In a shallow bowl, mix together flour, cornstarch, seasoning salt, and pepper. Dredge chicken pieces thoroughly in the flour mixture, shaking off any excess and also "pat" the piece to ensure you do not have excess flour. (you can place the dry ingredients in a large Ziplock and shake them in the dredge if you prefer)

5. Working in batches, gently place chicken pieces in the heated fat. Cook until chicken is golden brown and cooked through, 8 to 10 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack set over a parchment paper-lined baking sheet NOT crumpled paper towels. Serve fried chicken hot, warm, room temperature, or cold.

The corn starch will create the very deep golden brown color you see on the chicken I prepared. It is not burned or overdone, it is almost caramelized. I promise you on this recipe, perfect it, and you will be the fried chicken king or queen, it's that good!

 

[mattl]

Wow looks good.  Seems like a labor of love, I have a few recipes like that, lots of effort, but worth it.

 

[jamiel]

Are you sure about that cooking time? Seems a bit short to cook through.

 

[gyrafoam]

Yes. Frying chicken is a labor of love. To do it properly you have to stay with it and keep turning it.It is a Sunday dinner staple in the Deep South and whenever I do Sunday dinner, that's what folks expect to eat.

Everybody has their own way to make it and I have tried many different variations over the years. All of them are good to me as I was raised in the Deep South and nothing fried can ever be "bad"!

Thanks for sharing, Michael!

 

[joeekaitis]

a/k/a The Gospel Bird

 

Because the Reverend who came to Sunday dinner gets to take the first piece.

 

[gusherb]

Well I didn't think I'd be craving fried chicken this early in the day! Now to try your recipe and hope I don't mess it up...

 

[michaelman2]

Hey GusHerb... give it a shot. Start your salt water brine today. Jamiel pointed out something that is important, cooking time. He is correct for some pieces it may take 8 to 10 minutes per side to be fully cooked. 165 degrees if checked in the center with a thermometer.

Use tongs to grab and flip the pieces, not a fork. Fried chicken in moderation is a good thing!

 

[kevin313]

I need to be eating this right now!! Looks SO good, Mike! It's a challenge to find really good and authentic fried chicken up here in Michigan, especially that which is skillet fried instead of deep fried. Up here, "broasted" chicken is the big thing, which is essentially deep fried under pressure. It's good, but not the same as the wonderful traditional fried chicken you present.

And to fry in a combination of lard, butter and ham fat is mind-blowing! What flavor!!

And I agree with you - everything in moderation....including moderation!

 

[yogitunes]

if your cooking boneless breast, they will cook faster than thighs or legs....

but this recipes sound delicious....

 

[sudsmaster]

Other oils to consider for frying might include avocado oil (high in monounsaturated, low in polyunsaturated) and safflower (also low in polyunsaturated). The idea being that polyunsaturated fats tend to degrade more quickly under high heat, forming unhealthy derivatives and trans fats...

 

[michaelman2]

Kevin313, Thank you and you are correct, the flavors are imparted by the different processes as opposed to the breading. LOL on "moderation"!

Yogitunes, Correct...in fact, I used boneless breasts last night.

SudsMaster, I read an article regarding lard recently and there is much research on the fact that lard contains more Omega 3 fatty acids than fish oils. Important note, I am not referring to the awful Hormel boxed lard that is hydrogenated and full of trans fats.

You can place a dab of Crisco, margarine or another hydrogenated oil on your hand and it will stay there, un-melted until doomsday. Conversely if you place lard or butter on your hand they will eventually liquefy.

Remember how vilified coconut oil was for years and now it is the new "health food"? Same with coconut oil, it liquefies at 78 degrees. so it remains liquid when ingested. Ugh, can you imagine what Crisco does when 98.6 is not enough to keep it in a liquid state?...sorry got side tracked:

Not inferring that lard is a health food, however it is not as bad as the "digestible" vegetable oil, Crisco. Butter is exponentially less harmful than
hydrogenated margarine.

I have used safflower oil in place of lard or peanut oil and it works fine, provided it is seasoned with the butter and country ham.

I have never fried foods in avocado oil. Would be expensive but I would imagine delicious in other recipes. (we used to use avocado oil and coconut oil at the beach to fry our bodies in the sun...worked great..lol).

 

[sudsmaster]

Yes, I forgot about coconut oil (it's solid at room temp so I tend to think of it as coconut butter ;-).

Crisco, or at least used to be, is chock full of hydrogenated fats. Technically, the least healthful are partially hydrogenated fats. Lard is full of hydrogenated fats: all that means is that all the bonds are fully saturated with hydrogen. Unsaturated fats have double carbon carbon bonds, which are broken with heat and can reform in heat to trans-hydrogenation. Oddly, lard and beef fat naturally have some trans bonds, as well, but it's unclear if these natural trans fats are as unhealthful as artificially partially hydrogenated fats.

Trans fats have been found to raise blood triglyceride levels and bad cholesterol and therefore can contribute to arterial plaque and heart disease.

How can I describe this without drawings? Well, picture two people facing each other, with their arms held forward and holding each other's hands. That's an unsaturated bond. Then picture each person has one shoulder pad. In the case where the shoulder pads are opposite each other (on the right shoulder of one person and on the left shoulder of the other), that would be a CIS unsaturated fat. The shoulder pads represent the tiny hydrogen atoms. If the shoulder pads are kitty-corner from each other, as would be if they are both on the right or left shoulders of the couple, then that's a trans unsaturated configuration. The trans configuration occurs because the industrial methods used to add hydrogen to polyunsaturated fats are indiscriminate, they don't know which shoulder is left or right, whereas natural production of fats knows this and tends to put hydrogens in CIS configurations which are less harmful. The body apparently has a more difficult time dealing with unnaturally configured unsaturated bonds that occur from partial hydrogenation, hence the bad health effects.

It would appear that FULLY hydrogenated oils (fats) would not have any trans unsaturated bonds, so I have read they are less harmful than partially unsaturated oils. But I wonder if this is more theory than experimental evidence.

If you look at a can of Crisco in the market these days, likely the label will state it has zero trans fat. That's because it's a mixture of palm oil (saturated) and poly unsaturated veggie oils (probably soybean). There is, however a catch. The FDA allows labels to say "0" trans fat if the product contains less than a half gram of trans fat per serving. If you look at the ingredients, you'll also see partially hydrogenated oil as an ingredient, but its percentage of the total fat content is low enough to be less than a half gram per serving, and therefore merit the "zero trans fat" claim.

Me, I avoid any product with partially hydrogenated fats. They are unnatural and unhealthy. Ironically, nutritionists once considered partially hydrogenated fats as more healthy than animal fats, and were instrumental in convincing fast food outlets to switch from lard and beef fat to products like the old partially hydrogenated Crisco. Bad idea. Show how scientists are not always right.

I remember Julia Child waxing almost vehement on her show, when talking about margarine vs. butter. She firmly came down on the side of butter - and this was well before the dangers of trans fats were known.

Oh, and coconut oil (or palm oil) will have a long shelf life just like Crisco. It's because unsaturated bonds are less stable than saturated bonds, that's all. Highly polyunsaturated oils like soybean or corn oil tend to have relatively short shelf life. Ever seen the thick glue-like residue that forms from vegetable oil that's been left exposed for a long period? Like oil paint, the unsaturated bonds are oxidizing and cross linking. Not good to eat.

 

[michaelman2]

SudsMaster....Thanks for the science, your explanations were great and easily understood.

The sticky residue from the short shelf life highly polyunsaturated oils like; corn, soybean and canola are really evident when someone tries to season a cast iron skillet with these oils. Bacon grease is great to use for seasoning a skillet and has a long shelf life.

I am with you on partially hydrogenated fats. We both agree on Crisco as well. When I have a cake iced with "buttercream icing" and the maker has used Crisco/shortening in place of butter (almost every bakery), I just peel back that mess and eat the cake (which usually is not the best either.

Back to chicken...someone sent me an email earlier asking several questions. Here they are with my replies.

Do you use a cast iron skillet? Yes, it actually is called a chicken fryer. A deep cast iron skillet used for frying.

How about an electric skillet? Absolutely! In my opinion, Electric Skillets are really perfect for frying anything. The thermocontrol is usually accurate, they tend to heat very evenly and they maintain the correct oil temperature. They are also are deep enough for the amount of oil/fat you will use in the process.

Can you fry the bacon in the lard instead of using the country ham? I have never tried doing this. I had mentioned in the original post "thick slab bacon will suffice in a pinch" and I should have been a bit more specific. My guess is if you fry the bacon in the melted lard and butter there will be small bits of the bacon that can drop off and burn in the mixture. This would create a bitter taste.

I would fry the bacon separately and then add the strained grease to the mixture. The country ham really does provide the best flavor and is easier to render/cook.

Typical Side Dishes? My ideal meal is Fried Chicken, Green Beans (pole beans, sometimes referred to as Italian Green Beans, they are the flat green beans) cooked to perfection, Creamed/Fried corn, Mashed Potatoes and Biscuits.

 

[norgeway]

The biggest secret is

DO NOT EVEN TRY to fry a chicken over 3 pounds in weight, anything bigger will be tough and stringy.

 

[sudsmaster]

Flat green beans

Yes, those are my favorite. I usually have to grow them in the back garden; they can be hard to find in stores.

 

[ea56]

You are so correct Hans! I was thinking the same thing when I read the recipe and it calls for a 3lb. chicken. I don’t know about everyone else, but where I live all the whole chickens are gargantuan!
Most are at least 5 libs, and they are too tough for frying, but good for roasting.

Remember when stores had fryers and boilers in the poultry dept.? They were usually 2 1/2 lbs. to a little over 3 lbs., and either whole, in halves, quartrers or in ready to fry pieces. I always bought the whole fryers, because after watching Julia Child on TV I learned how to cut up a whole chicken,and its so easy, as I’m sure most reading this already know, and it saves $$.

Eddie

 

[stan]

Mike

What brand of Lard are you using ?
The only thing I can find here...that's fit to use, is organic leaf lard. Expensive

 

[michaelman2]

Lard

Stan,

There is a small butcher shop in Atlanta where I purchase leaf lard. You are correct when you say it can be expensive. In your area there should be a farmers market, I know south of you is a farmers market that has many Latin and Asian customers, they will have lard that will be much less expensive than the organic leaf lard you located.

Once you find the source, it will be a really good find. I mentioned above that while lard would not be considered a "healthy food"...the amount of Omega 3 fatty acids (even after being heated) is considerable. It makes a huge difference in baking and of course the recipe above.

Just whatever you do, do not use that horrible Hormel crap that is usually with the shortenings and oils at the grocer ...it is awful...even the smell is foul.

 

[sudsmaster]

I bought a 25 lb box of Fry King refined lard at the local Costco Business Center about 10 years ago, but never could bring myself to use it, so it eventually got thrown out.

I suppose it's similar to that "Hormel crap", ...

http://https//www.costcobusinessdelivery.com/cooking-oil-spray.html