Southern Fried Chicken

What better way to start a new blog than with a new recipe. Most of the new recipes I try lately come from the internet. But today I was determined to try something new from one of my many cook books and 100's of pages of jotted recipes from family and friends. I decided to keep the new theme and use a recipe from one of my newest book. This book happens to be a calendar. Paula Deen's 2009 Calendar. I got it for a buck, which is good because most of it is useless, unless I really happened to need a weekly calendar to tote around. I'm not that organized. But I was determined to find a recipe in this particular book to use. After looking through it I settled on her Southern Fried Chicken recipe. My kids might actually eat it and it is a perfect example of my cooking style. Toss that ingredient, change that one, cook in a totally different manner, yup, that about does it.



Southern Fried Chicken

4 large eggs.
1/3 cup water
1 cup hot pepper sauce
2 cups self-rising flour*
1 teas. pepper
One 2 1/2 pound chicken, cut into pieces
House Seasoning (recipe follows)
Oil for frying, preferably peanut oil
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House Seasoning
1 cup salt
1/4 cup black pepper
1/4 cup garlic powder

Combine all ingredients and store in airtight container for up to 6 months.
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Directions, more or less.

In medium bowl beat eggs with water. From my experience it doesn't take 4 eggs to coat 1 chicken. Plus with all that hot pepper sauce.... I'll make it one. I'm not sure why I have to add water at all, won't the hot sauce add enough liquid? Yup, leaving that out. My thinking (right or wrong) - that way it will be thicker to coat better.

Add enough hot sauce so that the egg mixture is bright orange. A whole cup of hot sauce? Oddly, I have this amount sitting around my house. One of those early couponing lessons I learned, don't buy more than you will use. I thought I would use that much as my son was going through a hot sauce on everything phase. The phase ended. It's actually starting up again, but I think we will be fine. And since I am cutting back on the egg, I assume I can use less hot sauce. I'm not really sure what bright orange should look like though.

Oh, that's it.

In another bowl, combine flour and pepper. I don't have self-rising flour. I'm thinking since I won't be deep frying it may not matter, but I will use a substitute just in case. ('Cause keeping that one thing and changing everything else is going to make a difference. ;)
* One cup self-rising flour equals:
1 cup all-purpose flour, plus
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder, plus
1/8 teaspoons salt.

Season with House Seasoning. I'm not going to make this whole amount, just enough for what I need today about 1/8th of that I think.

Season Chicken with House seasoning. Dip seasoned Chicken in egg mixture, then coat well with flour mixture. Pour oil into a deep pot, making sure not to fill it more than halfway. heat to 350 deg. F. Fry the chicken in oil until browned and crisp. Dark meat takes longer than white meat. It should take dark meat about 13-14 minutes. white meat around 8 - 10 minutes. Well throw all that out the window. I don't fry food. A bit of the peanut oil in the bottom of the baking pan and throw it in the oven at about 400 deg. (when in doubt I always bet on 400 or 350 depending on what it is.) for about 45 - 60 min. Turn when about 3/4 of the way done.



Observations - My package of "Cut up Whole Chicken" was not whole. It was missing a thigh. I guess the back bone and extra chunk of fat on the bottom of the package made up for it. Cutting the egg mixture down to 1/4 was just about right. Most of the seasoning came off in the egg wash, so I sprinkled extra over the top. That was a mistake. The coating ended up tasting like salt and a lot of pepper. I should have cut down the flour too but since most of it ends up on my fingers I left it. The remaining flavoring was alright, not my favorite but I may try it again, without the extra pepper. The family thought it was good and my oldest ate 3 pieces.