Hankerin' - The story of a meal

Ever get a hankerin' for something? Wow, I wrote that and immediately thought of this:



We watched an episode of Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives recently, only to decide that we don't eat enough fried chicken. There are good reasons for this, of course; not the least of which is that a single piece of the real deal probably sets you back several hundred calories and most of your daily fat allowance. Still, a hankerin' is hard to ignore. 


The Method

1. Soak a cut-up fryer chicken for 2+ hours in a mixture of milk, heavy cream (leftover from making butter), a little lemon juice (we didn't have buttermilk), and a few TBs of hot sauce.
2. Prepare seasoned flour. (We made this up. I'm sure there are amazing recipes for the coating.)
• We used self-rising flour, but you could add baking powder to regular flour.
• S&P to taste. (Didn't add enough of either. Next time...!)
• Garlic powder
• Whole wheat flour (maybe 1/4 of the white)
• few TBs of wheat bran
3.  Dredge the chicken in the flour mixture.
4. Re-wet with the milk mixture.
5. Re-dredge
6. Cook 10-15 minutes in 1/2" of hot canola oil. (Again, shortening would work, as would other oils. We used the oil from our zeppoles.)
7. Drain and cool.

The Result

It's probably wise not to satisfy hankerins very often...because in the middle of doing so it's very, very easy to convince yourself that something like fried chicken should be a regular part of your diet!

We served this with some lima beans cooked with a smoked ham hock, and a wonderful seven (or was it six?) layer salad to which we added the OPO radishes as a layer. Total comfort food. A perfect Saturday night dinner, although I doubt we could get up and go now.