Southern Fried Chicken
Southern Fried Chicken
A favorite of my family’s. I love to pull out two cast iron skillets and fry two full birds. They inhale this dish, especially when served with buttermilk biscuits, mashed potatoes, and gravy.
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chicken
buttermilk (enough to cover chicken)
Flour, for dredging
oil (vegetable shortening will give you the best “southern fried” results; olive oil will give you the best healthy results)
spice mix as follows (I made a quadruple recipe then put it in a shaker – like a Parmesean cheese shaker at pizza place):
2 tablespoons kosher salt
2 tablespoons Hungarian paprika
2 teaspoons garlic powder
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
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Bowl to soak chicken in buttermilk
Bowl to dredge chicken in flour
frying pan (cast iron works best)
tongs
cooling rack and paper towels on which to drain chicken
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Soak the chicken in buttermilk. 8 hours is ideal. I’ve done it for 20 minutes in a rush. Just try to soak it as long as you can.
Make the spice mix.
Heat the oil to 325° degrees F.
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Drain the buttermilk from the chicken. Liberally sprinkle both sides with spice mix. Dredge in flour.
Cook the chicken in the oil (when the chicken is in the pan, there should be just enough oil to come up halfway up the chicken) for 10-12 minutes on each side, or until the internal temperature reaches 180° degrees F.
Place on cooling racks over paper towels to drain.
For gravy:
Pour all but a tablespoon of the oil out of the pan, leaving the drippings. With a whisk, blend in 1-2 tablespoons of flour, until a thick paste is formed. Continuing to stir with the whisk, and over medium heat, add 1 cup of milk per tablespoon of flour. Stir with whisk until it thickens and boils. Boil 1 minute. Salt and pepper to taste.
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One chicken. Should feed about 4-6 people.
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Remove chicken breasts from bone before frying to make more room in the pan and cut down on their cooking time. Everything else is cooked on the bone.
I would love to hear any feedback about this recipe. Did you make it? Did you enjoy it? Did you make any adjustments to it?
Hallee
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Thanks for the recipe… it sounds so yummy! I have not had the best luck with fried chicken in the past, so I’m totally going to try this. I will use a traditional fat for frying, like lard or tallow. I bet that will give it a good southern fried taste. :)
When you remove the breasts from the bone, do you skin them too? I’m wondering if I could use boneless/skinless breasts for the whole she-bang. My kids don’t enjoy eating chicken off of the bone – when I roast a whole bird I usually carve it all off before serving. The rest of the time I cut theirs off of the bone before serving. But that seems to ruin the “point” of a good fried chicken – the yummy crispy crust.
I don’t skin them because the skin makes yummy grease for cooking and for gravy. For instance, when I oven fry I don’t put anything in the pan because the grease will come off of the skin and start frying the pieces without any added help. But, boneless skinless would work. I’d play around with the soaking times. The buttermilk is going to break the meat down and it might get too — the only word coming to mind is mushy – lol — the longer it soaks without the bone.
So maybe the answer is to buy bone-in, skin-on breasts, and de-bone them after the buttermilk soak, but leave the skin on. :)
You’ll save money buying them that way. :) I think that’s the best way to do it.