Quarantine Cooking - Southern Fried Chicken Recipe

Hello .

Y'all come on into the kitchen because I'm fixing to prepare the number one most .

Hey guys , y'all stopping leave .

Leave Max alone .

Gus Lulu .

Lulu get over there all of a sudden they all of a sudden they gang up on one of them and it's always max .

Look , show them , show you back .

This is Max right here .

The little brown one and the two of them gang up on him and I think you , oh , you're looking so sweet , like so innocent .

You are a trouble maker .

She is a trouble maker .

She gets there .

She will go up behind Max and bite him just to , I know she will go up behind him and just pure Biden .

I pick her up .

You can tell she's a female .

So anyway , this is the number one most requested recipe that y'all would like to see me cook and that's fried chicken and you know , it can be a challenge to fry chicken at home .

Uh Probably the biggest problem though is uh in our fryers in our electric fryers or our gas fryers at the restaurant .

Uh We're able to keep that temperature steady and constant where at home .

It's kind of hard , it's harder to do .

Uh , and I do have a , a commercial fryer here in the kitchen , but I'm not gonna use that today because I feel like most of y'all don't have that , that you cook your chicken on top of the stove .

So that's the way I'm gonna cook this .

And , uh , to me this is , this is an important step y'all because it's so hard to regulate your own .

I like for my chicken to sit out and get almost down to room temperature .

I mean , you don't wanna leave it out so long that it becomes unsafe .

Um , but if that chicken is not ice cold , I , I had to stand a better chance of keeping my temperature , you know , regulated .

So , and I'm wearing gloves cause this is a messy winter day .

So this is exactly the way we do it at the restaurants .

I'm gonna season it with my house seasoning and I'm gonna , in case y'all don't have access to this , I'm gonna share with y'all how you can make your own house seasoning .

All right .

Let's see .

Oh , look , there's a back and I love the back of a chicken .

You don't see that very often , but Teresa had the , uh , had the butcher cut .

This , didn't you ?

Teresa ?

I did it ?

I know .

All right .

So let me tell y'all how to make this , uh , one cup of salt , 1/4 of a cup of garlic powder , not salt but garlic powder .

1/4 of a cup of black pepper .

And over the years I've started adding 1/4 of a cup of onion powder to that .

So it's very , very simple .

One cup of salt , a quarter cup of each of those um , herbs , pepper onion and uh garlic .

So it's so easy .

And when we first started making this at the restaurant , we'd make it up , we'd mix it up in five gallon buckets .

And then every morning people would just go in there and scoop them up a bowl of seasoning and take it to their station .

All right .

So to me , what Lulu , what are you wanting ?

Something's wrong with Lulu ?

She's just wanting to fight or something .

What are you wanting to do ?

What are you wanting to do ?

And poor Max , look how red his eyes are .

He's saying help me , help me , help me look , his eyes are so red .

I think he's allergic to all of them stuff going on right now in the yard .

All right .

To me , this is what sets our chicken apart and I'm using my beautiful fresh eggs from my chicken coop and I'm just gonna beat those up and I'm gonna get me just a little drop of water about that much .

Not much .

Yeah .

And to me , this is our secret .

This is what gives it such good flavor .

What is it ?

It's my Paula hot sauce .

This hot sauce .

Is so good y'all .

I just love it .

And uh I worked on this for a while .

I remember actually going to Nolan's Louisiana and working with people on getting this formulated just to my satisfaction .

So it really is good .

Ain't , it's the best she's tasted and it's not overpoweringly hot .

But if they don't have access to that model , which one do you ?

I mean , are there any that you , I would say something like Texas beat or some kind of Louisiana hot sauce .

But to me , mine is so much more good .

All right .

So that looks like a lot of hot sauce , doesn't it ?

Y'all ?

That was probably five ounces .

So it was probably maybe three quarters of a cup .

So it sounds like a lot of hot sauce .

But in reality , your chicken is not gonna be hot at all , but it's gonna give it that flavor that you wonder .

Well , what in the heck is that ?

So there we go .

So we're actually gonna let this chicken marinate in this for a little while , you know , maybe 30 minutes .

But my grandma Paul , she taught me that .

I , if I was frying chicken for dinner to take that chicken out and season it that morning because that makes it so much better because those seasonings have had a chance to , you know , really get in there on that chicken and it , it really does make a difference .

So I'm gonna , uh , take a break .

At this point and in about 30 minutes I'm gonna come back and we're gonna fry it up y'all .

You're probably wondering all I have on a different shirt .

Yes , I do because I realized I was fixing a fried chicken in my good silk blouse .

So I went and put a cotton shirt on .

So I don't have to worry about it because I'm always gonna get grease splattered on me .

I don't care who I am or what time I am .

Ok , y'all .

So I told you what number one important step was , uh , that you let your chicken come to almost room temperature so it won't shock that oil and cause it to drop .

And I , we all of our restaurants and here at my house we use peanut oil cause I think peanut oil is one of the better oils for you .

It's certainly more expensive .

But you know , that's ok .

There's some things you want to splurge on and I have got this temperature up to right at 3 50 .

Can you see it , Eddie ?

Yes .

I mean it's right there at 3 50 I'm using my candy thermometer y'all to see my temperature .

So this has been sitting for about 30 minutes .

So I'm just gonna put it over here in the call under so it can drain and you'll want to discard this .

Now .

You don't wanna refrigerate this and try to use it again , you know , just throw it out all right .

Your next step is to pick out your dark meat first because your dark meat takes longer to cook than your white meat .

So , we wouldn't want to put a wing in first .

We would want to put in a thigh because this takes a while to cook .

And , uh , the , I don't wanna sound gory , but , uh , the blood is in the dark pieces of the chicken , not the white .

All right .

So we're gonna dunk our thighs first .

All right .

That's a back that doesn't take too , too long to cook .

All right , there's another thigh and the legs are considered dark meat , your thighs and your legs of a dark meat .

So I'm gonna drop them in first and I'm gonna flour them real good .

Just toss that around in my flour .

OK ?

And we're gonna come over here to a cast iron pot of , and I probably got put a quart of All y'all in , in my .

Now , do you ever season the flour with ?

No , you know , I don't .

Yeah , because I'm season the chicken .

So there's no need to cheese the cheese the season the , um , all right .

Now watch our temperature .

Eddie and see how it's dropping .

See if it's dropping .

Yes , it is .

How much is it ?

Well , I can't read it .

I'm sorry , let me drop .

But the , it's uh , not like , so let me get up here so I can see , I saw it go down .

Yeah .

Yeah .

It really goes down .

But some people like their wings twisted back up so it won't take that long to heat back up .

But that's your biggest challenge .

Frying chicken at home .

I see .

Just adding those two wings that caused it to drop .

But I'm gonna leave my therm in there so I can keep an eye on it because I'm gonna wanna just bring that temperature up a little bit more and help that get back to 3 50 .

So it won't take it long .

Oh , gosh , it's dropped to below two 100 .

So we don't have that when we fry our chicken in this piece of equipment over here , it knows to hold that temperature , but over here is a different ball game now , on your dark meat , you know , they , they throw chicken so big now .

Uh , and I don't like it .

My mama always said Paul Anne , by the smallest chicken you can find like a 2.5 pounder because that's gonna be a sweet bird .

Well , they don't do them that way anymore .

Uh , rarely , uh , they , I don't know what they're putting in them , but they're four and £5 birds .

They look like a , actually a hen .

Uh , but there is one person or one outfit that still raises your smaller chickens and that is , um , Springer .

Yeah , Springer Mountain .

You can find smaller chickens in their line of products .

But let's see .

Ok , it's trying to get back up there but you'll just have to play with your fire .

And , uh , I just don't want it to go over 3 50 .

But , you know , Eddie , I probably should have , uh , had it higher and then 3 50 to begin with .

Yeah .

So it could afford to drop .

But it's not gonna take it that long .

I got it cranked back up .

So , like putting it up to 400 wouldn't have hurt it .

Yeah .

Yeah , I think close to 400 which would have been , yeah , pretty good .

So , if you see , I'm , I'm not really used to cooking chicken on the stove anymore .

Myself .

Nor that small of a batch .

Yeah .

Nor that small of a batch .

Right ?

We're cooking 50 pieces of chicken at the time and you just leave it , you don't touch it , you don't turn it .

Oh , no , I give it a chance for that flower to grab hold .

You know , I don't want to disturb it too much Eddie because I want that .

I want that crust to , you know , stay on the chicken .

Not get all in the pan .

So , all right .

Is that tension is coming back up ?

Uh , so let's talk about how long I've started telling you how long to cook .

And I was talking about big chicken , uh , your thigh and your legs take the longest and I would say maybe 14 to 15 minutes on the dark pieces and maybe 12 or 13 , you know , you'll just have to judge on how big your chicken is .

Uh But your dark meat definitely takes longer than your white meat .

So , just remember that because nobody likes medium rare chicken .

I've never met a soul that likes medium rare chicken .

OK .

Y'all , I'm fixing to pull this chicken out and I actually couldn't get all my chicken in there .

So I've got some more to add to it .

But I think this has been about 15 minutes .

So if you're not sure if you're not sure if it's done , you can always take your thermometer , cut it on and stick it in the thickest part of your chicken and see what it reads .

All right .

Let's see .

Chicken should be .

Is it race 70 ?

I'll , I , you know , that kind of slips my mind .

Teresa .

I'll have to , I don't wanna say one thing and then it be the next .

All right .

So this looks delicious and that's the wing and oh , it looks so good and look how , look how fat these legs were y'all between 65 and that's what I thought .

So I'm between 1 65 and 1 70 .

So I was , I was right on it .

What I sometimes you just forget though , as you get older , you just forget .

So I told Aunt Peggy that I was uh frying chicken for supper .

So she's really excited .

We hadn't had fried chicken since the restaurant closed .

Have we ?

All right ?

Now , that's half of a breast right there .

That , those breasts were huge .

Oh , right .

So we'll get that chicken .

I mean , doesn't that look delicious ?

That looks like restaurant chicken and it does look like restaurant chicken .

It , that's it .

It's a nky day .

Oh , Paula .

Ok .

We're gonna have to cut this back up because I had cut it down a little because our chicken was frying so good .

So there we go .

You can have lady and son's chicken at home without going anywhere .

So I wanna wish y'all luck it .

Uh It's like anything else , the more you do it , the better you'll get at it .

And uh I know that your family will appreciate your efforts .

So invest in you .

Um I think candy thermometer so you can watch your grease and invest in um a good thermometer .

And you said cast iron holds well .

Yeah , I like cast iron because once it gets hot , it holds the heat better than any other um element out there besides gold .

And I don't know if anybody that can afford to eat to cook out of gold pot .

Copper is your next best .

But cast iron , you , you can't beat cast iron .

All right .

So our temperature did drop a little bit even though we had kept our chicken out of the refrigerator to get the room temperature , but it looks great and I hope you have the most success with your chicken .

But I don't want that to stop you from visiting me at any of the poll kitchens or the lady and sons , some best dishes and love y'all .

Enjoy your chicken girl .

You can cry about it .