The Perfect Pan-Fried Chicken, According to Charles Gabriel _ Food Skills

My name is Charles .

I'm the own of Charles Pan Fried Chicken in Harlem , New York .

Fried Chicken .

It's a hard of soul food .

And , uh , I've been cooking chicken since I was eight years old and I always cook my chicken in the frying pan .

My mother , she taught me how to cook chicken .

And she told me , you know , if I ever open up a bit of anything , never fry in the deep fry .

I always fry my chicken in the frying pan and cooking in the frying pan is better than cooking in the deep fryer because your chicken is more crispy , more juicy and not only frying chicken , you know , you have to really concentrate because you gotta keep turning the chicken in the pan .

So therefore you can't take your mind off of it because if you do , you'll burn it .

You really gotta pay a lot of attention to it .

If you're going to cook it in a frying pan first , you , you , you get the whole chicken .

I , I use whole chicken .

You take off the wings , then you split the chicken down the back , then you take out the center rest , then you're gonna take off the side breast and then you're gonna take the thigh and the leg , you're gonna cut and separate the thigh in the leg , which give you nine pieces of chicken .

And once you do that , you season it .

I got certain things that I put in it , salt pepper onion and a few more things that I can't give up .

Just Sprinkle a little , not too much , just a little on the chicken and rub it in and just let it sit .

And after that , I can make up your egg wash with milk and egg and I put a little bit of my special seasoning .

Then I go into the egg wash into the flour .

I use the all pepper flour .

I use the season also .

You don't wanna put too much in the egg wash .

You don't wanna put too much in the flour .

Otherwise it's gonna be too soft then into the frying pan .

I use soybean oil because soybean oil don't burn it as fast as some of the oil out there .

You don't wanna cover the chicken oil .

You want to be half in , half out and then you , you let the oil come to about , I'll say 3 75 and then you drop the chicken in , let it brown for about six minutes and then you turn it , you gotta keep moving it and moving it and moving it .

Otherwise , uh , you're gonna burn it if you cook it too fast .

It , it's not gonna be done this .

So you have to cook it really ?

On a medium heat .

I would give it at least 15 minutes .

And then once , once they get golden brown , you put it in a drain tray and just let it sit there for a minute .

Let the ssor go down and you're ready to eat .

I used to sell chicken by the park .

There was a lady she came by and asked me and she said , what are you gonna do in the winter ?

I said , well , I don't know .

She said , I tell you what , I have a truck , I'm gonna give you .

So I took the truck and , you know , I had a little route that I did every day .

So a lot of people , they couldn't catch up with me because I moved , I didn't stay in one spot .

And I said , you know what , maybe I should open up a restaurant and , you know , everybody come in and say you got the best fried chicken in New York just put out here all the time .

And , uh , I've been doing it all my life and , uh , when people tell me that it really make me feel good happens .

It's amazing .

I never thought it would be like this .