Fried Chicken

This post is dedicated to the dear Mrs. Linda Schiffman, a New Yorker transplanted to the South years and years ago who thinks herself unacceptable just because she doesn’t have a fried chicken recipe. Don’t worry, Linda. As long as you can recognize a good bagel when you taste one, you’re perfectly acceptable.

Here’s the recipe anyway, originally from Paula Deen’s recipe.

Southern Fried Chicken

4 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup water
3 lbs. chicken pieces or chicken wings
Approx. 1 1/2 cups Frank’s Hot Sauce
3-4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tbs. garlic powder
Canola or vegetable oil
Salt and Pepper

• Beat eggs in a large pan/plate along with the water. Stir in hot sauce (egg mixture should turn bright orange). Pour flour in another large pan/plate. Season the flour with four or five big pinches of salt and a hefty amount of freshly ground pepper.
• Season the chicken with the garlic powder and a good sprinkling of salt and pepper.
• Drag the chicken through the egg mixture. Lift the chicken pieces up and let the excess egg drip off back into the pan. Put the chicken pieces in the flour and gently toss the pieces around until they’re well coated. Shake off the excess flour and place the battered chicken pieces on another plate or pan. (Batter most or all of the chicken so you don’t have to worry too much about juggling the frying chicken and battering new pieces at the same time.)
• Heat up oil in a heavy bottomed pot over the highest heat possible. Use enough oil so that it reaches about 3-4 inches up the side of the pot. This large amount of oil takes awhile to heat up so be patient. It should take anywhere from 7-12 minutes. To test the heat of the oil sprinkle a little flour into the oil. If it burns up instantly, it’s too hot (although if you’re like me, you’ve been dancing around, staring at the oil, willing it to get hot, so overheating is rare). If the flour just kind of drifts down to the bottom, it’s too cold. If it just starts to bubble up and fry nicely and moderately, you’re good to go.
• Put a few pieces of chicken in at a time without crowding the pot. Make sure your chicken has room to swim around a little. After your chicken pieces have fried on one side for about 5 minutes, flip them. Keep in mind dark meat takes longer than white meat. Basically, each batch should take about 10-12 minutes. Watch the color of the batter on the chicken as an indicator of when it’s done. The chicken should be a toasty, golden brown when it comes out.
• Meanwhile, have a rack waiting on top of a sheet pan lined with paper towels. If you don’t have a rack, just line a sheet pan with paper towels. Put the cooked chicken on the rack and season each batch right as it comes out with salt.

To keep the chicken warm in between batches you can set your oven to 300 and put the chicken in there, but I prefer to just keep it all next to me on the range. It’s fairly warm up there so it’s fine, but also lukewarm or room temperature fried chicken is still deeeeeelicious, especially when it’s been very well drained of oil so that it stays crispy.

Also, it may seem like a lot of hot sauce, but the chicken comes out only with the slightest tang and zip.

I know this recipe seems complicated, but if you’ve ever fried anything, you’ll know that 1) it seems more complicated than it is, 2) the key is keeping the oil hot, and 3) it’s more time consuming and messy than anything else.

But the prospect of juicy, salty, crunchy fried chicken? So worth it.