Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Fried Chicken

The holiday season brings out the best in all of us. Cheer, goodwill toward (wo)men and all those warm and fuzzy things. It also brings out the glutton in all of us. I celebrated this wonderful season by making fried chicken. Because nothing brings good cheer like a big 'ol pile of fried chicken.

The fried chicken really came out of necessity more than anything else. My father bought a whole chicken for dinner and we were all simply tired of roast chicken. There also happened to be a pot of oil on the stove from my sister's doughnut-making episode the day before. Being the green enthusiast I am, I couldn't possibly let all of that good oil go to waste. Frying was the solution!

My father dutifully pieced the chicken from its whole form (which for never having done it before, did a pretty nice job) then we bathed each piece in some beaten eggs and then a coating of flour, seasoning the pieces at each step in its fried chicken journey.

You know, if I were this free-range, organic, hormone-free chicken I would feel pretty darn good that I was going to finish my existence on earth as some crunchy fried chicken. A good life, indeed. Just saying.

After dredging in the flour, we placed the pieces into a large pan of 350 degree oil and let them fry until golden brown, about 3-5 minutes on each side depending on the piece. We had about 2 inches of oil in our pan, hence the need to turn them over.

The result was a deliciously crispy bird we all enjoyed with, what else, wing sauce! Because my family has an odd obsession with this spicy sauce, we smothered the chicken with it and served it up with the classic accompaniment celery and carrots and a homemade ranch-like dipping sauce.

The ingredients we used (from the chicken to the flour to the veggies and even the sour cream for the ranch dip) were all organic and organic fried chicken never tasted so good!

2 comments:

Kate said...

Mmmm!! Now I am craving fried chicken! And good call with the wing sauce. What's your favorite? We usually use Franks.. if there is a better one, let me know!

Lindsey said...

Yes, Frank's is great! And I'm sure adding a bit more butter to it wouldn't hurt :)