How I Learned to Cook Fried Chicken: The Hard Way

Over the weekend, I had the pleasure of indulging in my never-ending love of fried chicken -- I didn't cook it at home, but I have and the first time was quite the learning experience...let me explain...

It was the early days of learning to cook. I was about twenty years old and invited my then boyfriend over for dinner. I decided upon serving fried chicken -- Buttermilk fried chicken, to be exact.

I have no clue where the recipe came from but I'm fairly certain it came from a magazine as my cookbook fever had not yet taken hold. I'm a planner so I studied the recipe carefully in advance of the day of the dinner. I studied it so hard that I had it memorized. Yummy, crunchy, moist fried chicken was within my grasp. I can't remember anything else about the menu except the beverage -- I made a big pitcher of what we called Bullfrogs which consisted only of limeade from frozen concentrate and vodka...get the picture?

This all went down at my dear grandparents' house while they were away. The kitchen had an electric stove. Prior to cooking, the chicken was dipped in its buttermilk batter and then the coated chicken was to rest in the refrigerator for a period of time, getting nice and cool before its grease bath. The recipe said to heat the oil to smoking point. I put a large stainless steel frying pan on the largest burner, added a lot of Wesson oil and turned the burner on high and waited to see the smoke.

Yes, the burner turned red hot and yet, I waited. Finally after at least 30 minutes (!), I decided that perhaps the oil was hot enough. I took the chilled chicken out of its icy resting spot...and...I...FLUNG...a whole breast into the oil!!!!

Well, the chicken immediately turned black (did I invent blackened chicken that day?). Hot oil went everywhere. I carefully extracted the chicken and turned down the heat on the burner. Ohhhh, so "smoking point" doesn't mean the oil will smoke...

I cooked the rest of the chicken satisfactorily and drank half the pitcher of Bullfrogs that evening; therefore, cleaning up the kitchen didn't happen that evening. Actually, not only did I not know how to fry chicken until that day, I was still behind the curve on learning how to clean up after myself. In fact, at the end of the summer, after my grandparents came home, my grandmother said, "Dear, did you fry anything this summer?" to which I replied, "Ah,yes, I made fried chicken. Why do you ask?" My grandmother then informed me that she thought so because there was oil all over the ceiling!!!

Click here for a Buttermilk Fried Chicken recipe by Pam Anderson. Have fun and don't start drinking the Bullfrogs until the chicken is fried!

Food & Kisses, GiGi