Don’t mind to the bite in the photo. Sometimes it’s hard to resist a good piece of fried chicken.
Crunchy country cooking like fried chicken, go hand in hand with summer nights in our beautiful river city.
Almost every Sunday my husband Alex asks me what I’d like to do for dinner. Despite acting like I’m open to anything, he and I both know deep down what I really want is fried chicken at a picnic table by the river.
The pink Kentucky sunsets, the glow of the great Ohio River, my wonderful husband, and chowing down on a bucket of greasy crunchy chicken is my favorite close to the weekend.
The Southern cooking staple has its own unique crunch and flavor, but also strikes the right note with most everyone. Nearly every culture in the world has a similar bird dish, dredging a bird through seasoned flour and frying to crunchy perfection. It is hard for anyone to resist.
In addition to craving fried chicken so much this summer, I have been continuing my culinary quest into Nan-Nan’s recipe tin. It has resulted in a plethora of cravings and treasures.
Intermingled with my grandmother’s various recipe cards, she had a few special vintage Maysville postcards. These photos captured our beautiful river city town in a variety of angles and moments of treasured time.
One of those Maysville postcards had her beloved fried chicken recipe on the back of it. It looked like she had intended on mailing it out, but it never made it to the post office. It was like finding buried treasure to stumble upon that postcard/recipe card.
Company for Sunday lunch or a week day dinner would easily mean Nan-Nan (my grandmother Louise Osborne) would have her cast-iron skillet hot and filled with bone in meat getting a shallow fry. She would strategically place a paper grocery bag on the counter and cover it with the finished product.
Nan-Nan would make sure each piece had air and space around it. Crowding the pieces only meant the chicken wouldn’t reach full crispy potential, and that was her favorite part. The name of the game was patience.
When it was time to eat, Nan-Nan loved to watch us sit at the table together and devour our plates. She’d usually eat a small dish of food, but mostly gaze at us with a big smile of satisfaction on her face.
“Well, Barbara, why don’t you just put your foot on it and growl,” was always declared by Nan-Nan at the table. But she wouldn’t have had it any other way.
To be honest with you, I never even attempted to make fried chicken until I was well into my 30’s. Why mess with perfection, and Nan-Nan’s was perfect. It was intimidating because she never fully followed a recipe. Everything she made turned out slightly different every time. The consistent factor being deliciousness.
Bound and determined to make sure that taste lived on I finally gave it a whirl. Nan-Nan had taught me the motions to make her simple and delicious fried chicken. Following the recipe was a different story.
As far as I’m concerned, my fried chicken will never taste as good as hers did, but like many things in life, our association of memories is captured in food. Those moments, those bites and chews, bring a precious time capsule of bliss on our plate that nothing else can recreate.
Fried chicken just brings something out to folks. Like my Nan-Nan I also enjoy watching people eat. One of my fried chicken moments has been watching the most proper of ladies getting greasy, bone sucking, skin crunching delight with this hands on food. We’ve all seen friends attempt to eat fried chicken with a fork, but that’s about all it shapes up to be, an attempt.
I had a girlfriend tell me the other day she won’t eat fried chicken in front of her mother-n-law, and after seeing her eat fried chicken that might not be a half-bad idea.
Nan-Nan didn’t make a lot of fried foods, but she never held back on making plenty of fried chicken. She always said, if you’re making it, you may as well make sure you have enough for leftovers. Who doesn’t love cold fried chicken? Sometimes that’s even better. Don’t be fooled by the simplicity of today’s recipe. It’s gonna make your taste-buds dance and possibly even cause your eyes to roll back in your head.
If you don’t have time to make it from scratch, don’t be shy about hitting up our local IGA or Kroger. The folks in both deli sections have got it going on. If you do have time, and if you are looking for a better understanding of how to make this crispy treat I encourage you to give today’s recipe a try. And when I say try, I mean dive right into that bucket of fried chicken.
Good luck and enjoy!
Nan-Nan’s Skillet-Fried Chicken
Variations: Add one more of the following to the flour – ¼ teaspoon of paprika, chili powder, curry powder, 1 tablespoon rosemary, 1 tablespoon tarragon. Try eating with a pancake or waffle and honey butter.
Makes 8 servings
Two 3-pound fryer chickens
Buttermilk (Quantity will vary depending on the bowl you are soaking meat in. If you don’t have buttermilk, add one tablespoon of vinegar per cup of milk.)
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
Fresh black pepper to taste
Vegetable shortening for shallow frying
1 tablespoon of bacon grease
(Canola oil, duck fat, lard, are also delicious to use. Meat cooked in meat oil is never a bad thing. Just remember, your skillet is frying and needs a shallow fry.)
Cut chickens evenly into serving pieces. Make sure you leave the skin of each piece attached and as intact as possible. Rinse under cold running water. Place chicken in a bowl and pour buttermilk over meat, submerging in the buttermilk. Let soak for at least 30 minutes.
In a brown bag or plastic bag, combine flour, salt, and pepper. Shake until blended. Remove chicken from buttermilk and put in a bag with flour mix. Shake so that each piece is coated evenly. Tap excess off of each piece. Place chicken on a wire rack with a paper bag underneath. Allow chicken to sit for 15 minutes. This will help the crunch really stick and coat the meat. Make sure the pieces are not touching.
Heat shortening/oil, in a large cast-iron skillet. Skillet should be about 1 ½ inches deep. When oil reaches 365 degrees, it is ready to begin frying. Remember, dark meat cooks longer than white meat and meat on bone cooks longer than non bone. Place meat in a skillet and make sure the pieces are not overcrowded or touching.
Fry until golden brown and crisp, around 15 minutes on each side. Rotate sides of meat with tongs, carefully making sure not to splash oil. Chicken only requires being turned once. Drain on another brown paper bag, using a wire rack if you have one. Repeat until all chicken is cooked.
Sprinkle it with salt and pepper after placing hot chicken in a bag. This will help the additional flavor stick to the chicken and really absorb into the bites.
Whatever you do, don’t cover chicken; this will just make the crunchy coat soggy. And nobody likes soggy chicken. Serve warm or at room temperature. If taking on a picnic, transport in a paper bag.
Plastic will make it mushy. Fried chicken is best when it’s getting air.
The photo and recipe used in today’s article are from the kitchen of Chef Babz
([email protected]), with a little help from her late grandmother, Louise Osborne.
