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Deep-Fried Chicken Is A Southern Tradition

Photo by JEFF HOUCK

Fried chicken is a food that everyone loves. Even the fit-conscious secretly lick magazine ads of fried chicken.

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By GREG and MICHELLE BAKER

Tribune correspondents

Published: July 29, 2008

Updated: 07/29/2008 02:44 pm

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Greg Makes His Chicken

Michelle is a good little Southern girl from a good little Southern family.

As a child, her family would gather on Sundays and most often congregated in a little kitchen just off Florida Avenue in Seminole Heights - her Great-Aunt Edie's kitchen, to be exact. There her mother, great-aunt, great-cousin Carolanne and great-grandmother Parr would prepare decades-old recipes passed down from generation to generation.

The house would fill with the aroma of collard greens and ham hocks, macaroni and cheese with saltine cracker crust, buttermilk biscuits, squash casseroles, black-eyed peas, pole beans (from the garden) with bacon and onions, mashed potatoes, stuffed sweet potatoes and, of course, fried chicken.

There are hundreds of fried chicken recipes out there, and at some point they all came from somewhere. Whether you use a vinegar and salt brine like the James Beard-award-winning Willie Mae's Scotch House in New Orleans or a flour and egg batter like the Yankees do, or a buttermilk and cayenne base like us, make it your own and start your own tradition.

GREG'S BEER AT NOON FRIED CHICKEN

8 pieces skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs

1 quart buttermilk

3 eggs, scrambled

1 tablespoon Texas Pete's Hot Sauce

3 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons salt

2 teaspoons black pepper

2 teaspoons garlic powder

2 teaspoons onion powder

2 teaspoons dried thyme

2 teaspoons dried mustard

2 teaspoons ground cayenne

1/2 gallon canola or peanut oil

3 beers, your favorite brand

Place the chicken in a glass, plastic or ceramic bowl. (Never, ever, in a metal bowl - enzymes, baby. Enzymes.) Cover the chicken with the buttermilk.

Place the chicken in the refrigerator for 11/2 to 2 hours. Open first beer and enjoy.

Place the canola or peanut oil in a large (2-gallon), heavy-duty pot and heat until the temperature reaches 350 degrees. Check this with the $8 candy thermometer that's been stuck in the back of your kitchen junk drawer for years.

Mix the flour with the salt, pepper, cayenne, garlic powder, onion powder, mustard and thyme. Probably time for beer No. 2.

Mix the hot sauce with the eggs.

Remove the chicken from the buttermilk and pat dry with a paper towel.

Coat each piece of chicken with the flour mixture, then the egg mixture, then back to the flour and, finally, set aside until all of your chicken is breaded.

Using a pair of tongs, drop each piece of chicken into the hot oil, being careful not to make the pot overflow. (Never start this process with, "Here, hold my beer." We don't want any 911 calls.)

Cook the chicken for 10 to 14 minutes, depending on the thickness, until the temperature at the thickest part of the chicken thigh reaches 160 degrees. (Use the meat thermometer that's been sitting in the drawer next to your candy thermometer)

Remove the chicken from the oil, drain on a paper towel and let it sit for 5 minutes before eating. Crack beer No. 3 and enjoy your masterpiece.

Makes 4 servings.

Greg Baker is a classically trained executive chef with more than 20 years of trendsetting experience. Greg and Michelle are co-owners of Cooks and Compa

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