Fried Chicken, Take 2

Thursday night I tried out another fried chicken recipe. And may I say, second time was the charm, becuase this chicken was GOOD! I made four breast pieces (using skinless boneless chicken breasts), and this recipe was just enough to cover all four, with a little leftover, but not enough where I felt like I was wasting a lot of batter.


These are the ingredients I started out with.

First, of course, you put the oil in and start heating it up while you prepare the rest of the ingredients. This is fresh oil, so it looks nice and pure. You should see it after you use it a few times, though - ick.

Now that you have the oil heating up, you mix together the dry ingredients. Here we're using 1 1/2 cups flour, 1 T garlic salt (I used garlic powder, because we didn't have garlic salt), 1 t black pepper, and 1/4 t poultry seasoning. (Of course, T means tablespoon, and t means teaspoon.) Throw it all in a bowl, mix it all together, and set it aside.

Next you mix up the crispy batter ingredients. Here we're using 2/3 cup flour, 1/2 t salt, 1 beaten egg yolk (I kind of felt guilty throwing away the white, but what can I do with one egg white?) and 3/4 cup flat beer or water (I used flat beer). Mix it all together, and set it aside once again.

Now for the fun stuff. You take a piece of chicken (in my case, boneless, skinless chicken breasts, but of course you can use the more traditional fryer pieces, too), and dip it first into the dry ingredients.

Then you dip it in the wet ingredients, getting it nicely covered, all sloppy like.

Then you dip it into the dry ingredients again.

Place the chicken in the fryer (the recipe didn't say how hot to make it - I set it to about 375) and let it cook for 15-18 minutes. I was doing fairly large breasts, and could only do them one at a time, unfortunately, so I was standing at the fryer for just over an hour. But smaller pieces could be done together, of course (or if you had a bigger fryer, that would let you do more pieces, too). I cooked these for 15 minutes each, and they came out perfectly done.

Here's the first piece, fresh out of the oil. Sorry if the pictures are kind of blurry - I love having a digital camera, but the way the screen is on this one, I couldn't tell that this picture and the next one were a little blurry until I had them on the computer, and by then it was too late to retake them. C'est la vie.

Here it is after I cut into it and ate the first bite. I don't have audio of me eating it, but here's what it sounded like: "oh man. Oh that's good. Mmm." Hmm. Sounds kind of dirty, huh. :) It was that good, though. I LOVE a good piece of crispy chicken.

So there we are. My search for a good fried chicken recipe is over in two tries. Here's the recipe, as I found it on cooks.com (with my notes in parentheses).

Crispy Fried Chicken

Seasoned Flour

1 (3 lb.) fryer, cut up (or 4-6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts)
1 1/2 c. flour
1 T garlic salt
1 t black pepper
1 1/2 t paprika
1/4 t poultry seasoning

Crispy Batter:

2/3 c. flour
1/2 t salt
1 beaten egg yolk
3/4 c. flat beer or water

Combine ingredients for seasoned flour and set aside. Combine ingredients for crispy batter and set aside. Heat oil in frying pan or deep fat fryer (I would actually start this before you start combining ingredients). Dip chicken in seasoned flour. Dip chicken in crispy batter. Dip again in seasoned flour. Fry for 15-18 minutes or until well browned. Drain on paper towels.