Southern Fried Chicken the Baconator Way

Fried chicken, southern fried chicken, pan fried chicken, deep fried chicken; no matter how you call it out, it can be found in almost everyone's kitchen at one time or another. Deep Frying in itself has along history and is used as a cooking method in most cultures around the world. As far as deep frying chicken, there is about as many recipes for it as there are for mom's best cherry pie. Each varies in one aspect or another to type of grease it is fried in to seasonings of flour one dredges their chicken. So why is mine better then the next person's you ask? Lets just say the Colonel has nothing on the Baconators' Deep Fried Southern Chicken My secrets are in the seasoning and the process and what I fry my chicken in right down to the temperature of the grease! Allow me to share my success with you. Here is my very own secret recipe to the very best deep-fried southern chicken you ever laid your mouth on. I have attached pictures for your viewing pleasure. At the time of the pictures, I was frying up a bunch of chicken legs. My youngest went through a spell where every night before bedtime he had to have fried chicken. I would make a bunch up ahead of time so it only took me a matter of minutes to fulfill his wants. Therefore, in this recipe I will be stating the need for chicken legs although any cut of chicken works the exact same way.

Deep Fried Southern Chicken

You will need:

Chicken legs

2 large cans of Chicken broth

1 ½ teaspoons of Paprika

1 ½ teaspoons of Garlic powder

1 ½ teaspoons of Onion Powder

2 teaspoons of Salt

1 ½ teaspoons of Pepper

1 ½ teaspoons of Poultry seasoning

Flour

Cornmeal ground fine in a food processor

Lard

1 1/1 cups of Buttermilk

1 egg

First you will par boil your chicken legs in the chicken broth. You can freeze the broth after using and reuse it for your net batch of deep fried chicken or use it in some chicken noodle soup. Par boiling the chicken legs aids your cooking process in two ways. First, you insured that the chicken is thoroughly cooked prior to eating and secondly when you drop your chicken into the deep fat fryer, your grease does not drop drastically in temperature. Set the chicken aside in a colander to drain off excess broth. You want it cool enough to handle but by no means cold!

Next, you will mix up your flour dredge. First you will need to take approximately 1 ½ cups of cornmeal and place in a food processor. Process until it is a fine powder or real close to flour texture. Place in a mixing bowl. Add about 1 ½ cups of flour to the processed corn meal, add paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, salt, pepper, and poultry seasoning to the flour/cornmeal mixture. Blend thoroughly. Set aside. In a seperate bowl, mix your buttermilk with your egg. Whip thoroughly. Take your par boiled chicken legs and dip into the buttermilk/egg mixture then dredge (roll) in your seasoned flour cornmeal mixture. Set aside on a plate with each leg not touching for a couple minutes to allow the flour to soak in a bit to the buttermilk mixture.

In your deep fat fryer, make sure you have enough lard to fit recommended level for fryer. Have lard at exactly 375 degrees before dropping chicken into fryer.

Lard has received a bad rap for being less then healthy. However, reality is that lard has less saturated fat, less cholesterol than an equal amount of butter, and more unsaturated fat. Lard also contains no trans fat. For cooking with, it is wonderful. Although I am a huge fan of butter for my piecrust, I am not beyond using lard, especially if I am making potpies or a meat pie. For deep fat frying, it has little to no smoke and gives your food a very distinct awesome flavor that cannot be beat.