My First Time … Frying Chicken That Is
You wouldn’t know it by looking at me, but I don’t eat much fried food. Also, my mom nor dad have ever fried anything that I remember. And I’m pretty sure my only foray into home frying was an ill-fated funnel cake event as a babysitting teen. The cake was delicious, but there were some stragglers in the pan that burned and filled the entire house with smoke. Because I was young and dumb … and there were no cell phones to call anyone smarter (which is exactly what I would do now that I’m old and dumb), I hastily dumped the oil on the front yard, leaving a large spot of dead grass that Herb wasn’t so happy about.
I say all that to explain why I’m not sure why I got a wild hair to fry some chicken yesterday … on a school night no less. S. has been traveling a lot for tournaments and hasn’t been quite as vigilant about his good eating habits. For no apparent reason … other than I’m weak … I’ve been very easily swayed to do the same. So when I saw a fried chicken recipe in my Glamour mag that used panko bread crumbs (which I happened to have), I thought what the heck.
The actual recipe didn’t look all that great so I hit the net for some additional inspiration, which I mostly found from a guy named Coupon Dad, but also gathered from various other sources. I used boneless, skinless chicken breast, which I like to believe made it a tiny bit healthier … and although I have no experience, I’m sure it made it much easier because they cook quickly and I didn’t have to worry much about making sure they were done, but not too tough.
Here’s roughly what I did (sorry for the lack of measurements, I just winged it … odd for me so I’m sure you can do it too!):
Boneless Skinless Fried Chicken Breast
5 thin boneless skinless chicken breasts (if you can’t find thin, you could probably pound them)
Salt and pepper
2 cups buttermilk (or this nifty substitute that worked fine for me)
6 or so shakes of hot sauce
Oil to reach one to two inches in pan/pot (peanut is recommended, I used half canola/half vegetable with fine results) – and it’s more oil than you think (nearly a small bottle)
Flour
2 eggs, beaten (I used two eggs for five thin breasts)
Panko bread crumbs
Seasoning (I used Penzey’s Northwoods Seasoning)
- Salt and pepper chicken and soak in buttermilk and hot sauce in a 9 X13 pan (most sources say overnight, I did it for two hours).
- Season flour and bread crumbs with seasoning on two separate plates (I like spicy so I piled it on).
- Heat oil to 350 degrees (Regarding temp: I have a thermometer, but a nifty hint in the Glamour worked better … add one kernel of popcorn to the oil, and when it pops, the oil is 350 degrees. Regarding pan/pot, I used a large Dutch-oven-like pot, which worked fine and seemed to help with splattering.)
- Dredge the chicken in flour, then dip in the beaten egg, then dredge in bread crumbs (one tip I’ll try next time … letting the coated chicken sit on waxed paper to allow the mixture to better adhere).
- Add chicken to hot oil and fry 3 or so minutes on one side, then flip and fry a few minutes on the other (I just did two pieces at a time and found that I needed to wait for a bit between batches to allow the oil to reheat).
- Drain on paper towels.
Unfortunately, I was so worried about frying chicken for the first time and making sure that S. and I ate it while it was hot and tasty (and it was tasty!), that this is the only pic I got …
