Easier Fried ChickenTaking On Magazines

If you want me to learn something, let me do it. Experiential learning is my best teacher.

That may be one of the reasons I am such a fan of Mario Batali. At one point in his culinary teaching he went to Italy to learn to cook Italian food. He didn attend some culinary school for the experience, however. Nope. Instead, he lived in a small town and cooked along the people there. He embedded himself in the community, culture and cuisine.

When I moved down to North Carolina I discovered Carolina barbecue (be still my heart) and stood by experienced barbecuers until I had the method down. Collard greens? A little lady named Maxine showed me her tried-and-true (and delicious) method for making them and I was right there next to her while she did it.

Fried chicken has continued to elude me, however. Ive had conversation after conversation with people about making it and am always told the same thing; Oh, I can make it like my Momma can. If you want to learn to make good fried chicken, you need to go find yourself a southern Momma and stand by her side.

Ive lived down here for over fifteen years now and that still hasn happened. Its really hard to find someone that thinks they make excellent fried chicken and is willing to share their secret with you.

So, its with an overwhelming amount of joy that I show you those perfectly fried chicken legs. Do you see those? I made them. Without anyones help.

Well, maybe with a little help from my friends at Americas Test Kitchen.

You have to read the article that goes along with this recipe to understand why the chicken is fried, then baked. It has to do with using less oil, water being converted to steam, dehydration, etc. Its fascinating and makes sense. I think the recipe is mis-titled though. Its not necessarily easier fried chicken, because frying, then baking adds a step. It is a more frugal and less fattening way of frying chicken though.

Theres a big debate between chicken fryers as to whether the pieces need to be soaked in buttermilk prior to frying. I don know which is better, but this version soaks and it works. With hot sauce, garlic powder and cayenne added to the buttermilk, you can just imagine the amount of flavor that seeps into the meat over time.

Where this recipe veers away from others Ive tried is in the coating. In addition to the seasoning added to the flour, a bit more buttermilk is as well. Just a bit. This gives it some moisture, so its easier to press it onto the pieces, giving a more uniform coating.

With under two cups of oil used to fry the chicken, Im a happy camper. Its always felt pretty wasteful to throw out three cups of oil after one meal. Not the case here. After browning the chicken in the skillet, it got put on the rack and into the oven to finish cooking.

I let my chicken soak for a full 24 hours to get the maximum flavor infusion. I also used my 12-inch straight sided skillet and couldn fit all the pieces in so had to do two batches. My chicken baked for the full 20 minutes.

Hubby took one bite of this and said, You finally did it. Hes been well aware of my quest to make perfect fried chicken (how could he not be?).

I really did finally do it. You can tell that just by looking at it. The crust is very crispy and crunchy. It has a tremendous amount of flavor. Its very, very juicy. Its just freakin awesome. No other words for it.

Both of those legs were devoured by Dudette. She didn even mind the heat from the hot sauce and cayenne.

I would buy this magazine for this one single recipe. The chicken is that good.