NOTE: The following is a recipe review that I posted on my Tumblr "mini" blog over two years ago. Unlike the other recipes that I have written about, I really like the fried chicken recipes that have become one of my favorite go-to meals when I'm cooking at home. The recipes also work for other meats such as country style pork ribs (which are actually boneless) that I've been eating a lot lately. I love these recipes, and I'm sure you will too.
Even A Monkey Can Do It
For the longest time, I’ve wanted to cook fried chicken. Up to now, I had put off doing it despite finding easy recipes to use. I assumed that the process was time consuming so I just kept telling myself “someday” while never committing to doing it. Especially now because of work and other reasons that I won’t go into, finding some “me” time is really hard. In spite of that, I managed to find simple recipes that allowed me to expand my culinary skills.
Real Simple Fried Chicken
The first recipe that I tried was from “Never Enough Thyme …When Lana’s Cooking” that didn’t require many ingredients and consisted of only a few steps. For me, that was a relief because I hate spending hours in the kitchen for a meal that I will spend minutes eating. To prepare for cooking, I only needed to get chicken, because most of the other ingredients (black pepper, salt, cooking oil) are things I normally keep on hand. For flour, I used Kentucky Kernel Seasoned Flour that I originally bought for frying pork chops. I don’t know if it’s “self-rising” or not, but it okay for what I was doing. As for cooking oil, I chose canola oil over the recipe’s recommendation of peanut oil because the latter burns hotter (I didn’t want my chicken looking like charcoal nuggets). In addition to the recipe’s ingredients, I also added D.C. Gibbard’s Sophisticated Gourmet Habanero Seasoning by sprinkling modest amounts on the chicken. I did that to make it spicy and (because the seasoning has paprika in it) taste like traditional fried chicken. Speaking of poultry, I sorta went non-traditional by using boneless, skinless chicken thighs from The Fresh Market, which for me was a healthier alternative given the amount of cholesterol that I normally consume in meals. Prepping everything was very easy and only a took a few minutes, then it was on to my Teflon pan for frying.
In using a pan to fry the chicken, I poured enough canola oil to give it a half-inch of depth for the chicken to fry in. Following the recipe’s directions, it took about thirty minutes to fry the chicken. During the process, I feared that I would burn the chicken or worse, but everything turned out great.
The flour that I coated the chicken with turned into a spicy golden brown thin crust that was delicious. The chicken itself had great texture and was very juicy without the grease. Overall, my effort proved successful and I was anxious to fry more chicken.
Skillet-Fried Chicken
Feeling confident after my successful first attempt in cooking fried chicken, I went at again with a different recipe. From searching the Web, it didn’t take long to find a recipe on Betty Crocker’s website.
The ingredients and directions for this recipe are very similar to the one that I used earlier, with the only differences being that the ingredients in this recipe are measured and the chicken itself, consisting of a drumstick and thigh from Charlie’s Meat Market. So, following the directions almost precisely (I subbed the paprika for the same habanero seasoning that I used earlier), my results were about the same as before, more or less. The “less” part concerns the spiciness of the chicken, which was slightly milder than “Lana’s” recipe. Other than that, the chicken was very good.
It’s not often that I give myself an “atta boy” for a good effort, but given my minimal cooking skills, I deserved it. Of course, I can’t take all the credit, because both recipes were very easy to follow and didn’t require much time or skill to execute. I guess my trepidation to frying chicken stems from watching my Mom do it when I was growing up. Although I will never come close to matching the tastiness of Mama’s fried chicken, the recipes that I have now will more than suffice. Now if a novice like me can do this with the recipes mentioned here, I can confidently recommend them to anyone looking for a simple way to cook fried chicken.
SIDE NOTE: If you use any of these recipes, I advise you to reuse the cooking oil that you fried your chicken with. Although it might be a little brown in color, it’s fine to reuse a couple of times. Doing this will save you money in cooking oil, which can be expensive if you cook a lot. Anyway, good luck and bon appétit!
Websites:
Real Simple Fried Chicken: LanasCooking.com
Skillet-Fried Chicken: BettyCrocker.com
Labels: Commentary, Fried Chicken, Recipes
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