RECIPE: Everything you want to know about fried chicken, etc.

18 years ago

Going for fall ride and end up at the best fried pulley bone restaurant with all the trimmings.

Thought I'd share these southern recipes:

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Mother's Fried Chicken

1 whole fryer, cut into pieces

Paprika

Salt

Pepper

1-1/2 cups flour

2 cups shortening

In a large bowl, sprinkle the pieces generously with paprika, salt and pepper. To coat the chicken, pour flour into a clean brown paper bag, add the pieces, close the open end and shake.

In a large, shallow pan with a lid, melt shortening and heat to 375 degrees. Fry the chicken in a single layer for 5-10 minutes on each side. Cover, reduce heat and continue cooking until clear juices run when chicken is poked with a fork. Drain on paper towels.

Milk Gravy

Crisp bits from frying chicken

2 cups whole milk

3/4 cup water

2 heaping tablespoons flour

Salt and pepper

Pour the warm oil into a heat-resistant receptacle or clean empty can lined with a paper towel secured to each side with a wooden clothes pin. As you filter the oil, the sediment coats the bottom of the pan; the paper towel catches the crisp bits, so don't throw them away.

On medium-high, heat up the skillet of drippings and crispy bits of flour before adding 2 cups of whole milk. Cook until milk begins to smoke. Add 3/4 cup water into which the flour has been stirred until smooth. Pour the flour-water mixture into the hot milk to thicken and add salt and pepper to taste.

Whipped Potatoes

4-6 red potatoes

1 stick butter or margarine

1/4 cup whole milk

Salt and pepper

Peel, cube and boil potatoes in salted water until they break apart when pierced with a fork. Drain; add the butter or margarine, milk, salt and pepper to taste. Whip the potatoes with an electric mixer until creamy and smooth.

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Comments (9)

User
18 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
OOh Glenda, now I have a craving for
. Unfortunately the only kind of fried chicken you typically find in Canada is the fast food type, like KFC. If I didn't already have dinner planned tonight I'd pick up some chicken and make it tonight. Guess it will have to wait until tomorrow.

I make it similar to your recipe with a few extra spices and I add a little fresh sage to the cream gravy.

Home Cookin Chapter: Recipes From Thibeault's Table

======================
Cut a chicken into 8 or 10 pieces.

Season flour with with garlic powder, salt, pepper, cayenne pepper and thyme. Beat together eggs with a bit of milk. Dip the chicken pieces into the egg mixture then into the seasoned flour. Repeat this process so that the chicken is dipped into the egg and the flour mixture twice.

Heat oil about an inch deep in skillet and fry chicken, turning once, until golden brown.

Serve with a cream gravy with mashed potatoes.
ginger_st_thomas
18 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Glenda, that's the way my Mom made it. Sometimes she's soak it for a while first in buttermilk. It sure smelled good while cooking.
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Oh Robin you've made my mouth water and the memories of Sunday dinner at our house as a child come flooding back. My dad made the best fried chicken. It was and is a fairly simple recipe. Being health and weight conscience I only make it for special occassions. My kids still ask for Pop's fried chicken on their b-days. Coat and Season chicken, (can use boneless breasts or other parts after soaking in ice, salted water for about an hour) with flour and salt and pepper. Dip coated chicken in an egg and milk mixture, again with s&p. Then take a brown grocery bag. Put flour, (start with 2 or three cups (depending on how many pieces you are coating. More s&p) Place chicken pieces only one or two at a time in the bag and shake, shake, shake until pieces are nicely coated. After all pieces are coated, place chicken in frig while heating Crisco shortening in a cast iron skillet. When shortening is melted take a drop or two of water, when shortening sizzles the pan is ready for the chicken. Do only a few pieces at a time. Leave lots of room in the pan for chicken to fry. When golden brown remove chicken. Place on paper towels and remove excess fat. Season to taste while chicken is still hot! We never made a gravy for it, never saw the need! Enjoy. Now I need some of Pop's Fried Chicken! :)
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shaun
18 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
ummmm now I want some fried chicken!
pink_warm_mama_1
18 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
We once had a live-in for the children who made the best mashed potatoes ever! She mashed them well before dinner-time with the usual s&p and butter, plus some of the potato water, and then placed them in the top of a double boiler, stirring them regularly. They were creamy and superb.
lisbet
18 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
A Bit of Nostalgia.......does anyone remember the Chalfont in Cape May, N.J. or the Chalfont-Haddon Hall in Atlantic City ??

Chalfonte's Southern Fried Chicken

1 frying chicken -- (3-pound) quartered
Salt
1 cup flour
2 tablespoons paprika
Black pepper to taste
2 cups shortening or corn oil (or a 2-inch depth for frying)
1 medium onion -- sliced

1. Soak the chicken in salted water for 1 hour. (Add 1 tablespoon salt to each
quart of water.) Drain chicken and pat dry.

2. Meanwhile, in a bag or bowl, mix flour, paprika, salt to taste and pepper. Add the
chicken and shake to coat thoroughly.

3. In a large skillet or deep fryer, heat the shortening or oil to 365 to 375 degrees.
Place the onion in the hot oil. (Adjust the heat as needed to keep the oil sizzling
moderately, but don't let it burn.)

4. Add the chicken to hot oil, again adjusting the heat. Fry for 10 minutes. Turn
chicken and fry until tender, crisp and browned, about 10 more minutes. (Test for
doneness with a fork, or watch for the breast meat to split along the muscle.)

Note: As long as the oil is sizzling, moisture is being forced out of the chicken as
steam, preventing the meat from absorbing excess oil.

The Chalfonte chicken still sizzles in the pan

Today's request takes us back to 1990, when a visit to the Chalfonte in Cape May,
N.J., found the chef at that grand Victorian resort hotel holding court in her bright,
airy kitchen on a sunny August day. Quick as any teen, Helen Dickerson simul-
taneously supervised the dinner preparation, answered a reporter's questions,
and kept an ear tuned to her favorite afternoon soaps.

At 81, Miss Helen (as she liked to be called) still ruled her kitchen domain, though
the heavier cooking chores had been delegated to her two assistants, her
daughters Dorothy Burton, then 63, and Lucille Thompson, 61.

Miss Helen shared memories of her more than 70 years at the Chalfonte, 45 of
them in charge of the kitchen, along with recipes for dishes such as the fried
chicken that continues as the star item on the hotel's Sunday dinner menu. It is
that recipe, clipped from The Inquirer's Food section but later mislaid, that
reader Joe Ochman mentioned first in his recent e-mail to us.

Miss Helen's talent for Southern-style cooking brought her national attention. Her
recipes were collected into a cookbooklet by the hotel. And the outspoken
Miss Helen often stole the show during television appearances with talk-show
hosts such as Phil Donahue.

Miss Helen died just a few months after our article about her was published. Her
daughters, now 75 and 72, inherited their mother's kitchen at the Chalfonte.

And hundreds of chickens continue to be fried there on summer Sundays in the
aged, oversize cast-iron skillets, each holding a dozen or more chicken quarters at
a time.

Keys to the recipe's success are the soaking, which keeps the chicken moist, plus
the onion flavor and the sizzling temperature of the oil. The onions go into the hot fat
first and stay there until the chicken is done, Burton said.

Source: "Marilyn Marter Column, Phila Inquirer, April 4, 2001
Yield: "4 servings"
ruthanna_gw
18 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Hard to believe but I've never tried making fried chicken.

Lisbet, I remember seeing Miss Helen and her daughter on the Phil Donahue show and it was so funny. She cooked some food and then refused to put it on the plates the show provided. She told Phil something like, "I wouldn't feed my dog off of cheap plates like these. You get me some nice plates like you would use and then you can taste it." It was the first time I'd ever seen him speechless.
danain
18 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Great stories!

Ruthanna, I have to agree about the plates! Go to all that trouble to prepare a meal it should be on a nice plate, lol!

Growing up, we had fried chicken every Sunday. The chicken was fried in an iron skillet in lots of Crisco shortening and we never put the lid on the chicken so it was so crunchy it sometimes made the roof of my mouth sore! Dad always made cream gravy from the drippings in the skillet and he had mashed potatoes with lots of butter and cream. There were 5 of us kids who took turns choosing the vegetable. I loved the thighs with that big slab of crispy skin.

Today, I love the way it smells but I absolutely can not put a piece of it in my mouth! I can no longer eat skin on chicken or fried chicken without being sick. My Dad used to get so mad at me and say, "You grew up on it and it didn't hurt you then!" Not only that but the huge portions! No wonder so many people are fat and have heart disease. I still think if my Dad would have stopped eating like that he would still be here. Then again, he went out enjoying every bite!

Marilyn
lisbet
18 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Think we ALL get a bit "funny" when we hit that "big 80 mark" !!!! LOL, I should know! I have just passed that mile-post myself !
lindac
18 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Chalfont-Haddon Hall! I think I have an ash tray stolen from that wonderful old hotel! But I never had their fried chicken.
And Lisbet? I suspect you were always "funny"...LOL!
Linda C

RECIPE: Everything you want to know about fried chicken, etc.

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