Fried Chicken At Our House?

I was reading http://bonappetempt.com/ early today.  If you haven't had a chance to look at this wonderful blog you should make the time.  I do not know if it is the recipes, the wonderful pictures or the writing that I enjoy so much.  Anyway, she was talking about food not turning out the way you planned it.  Not so much the taste but the look.  I think sometimes we all do that, we figure that since it doesn't look the way it did in the picture or the way we expect it to it doesn't taste good.  Now that I think about it, that can even include dishes that you thought were going to taste one way and wound up tasting different.  Not a fail, just not what you expected!

Last night I decided to be brave and try to fry chicken.  Now for me that is a big one!  I live in the capital of fried chicken!  I have told Michael that scrawny white women from Brooklyn cannot make fried chicken or baked macaroni and cheese (I am positive I am correct on the second one).

I do not have an old family recipe passed down from my great grandmother for fried chicken so to the internet I went.  It doesn't come much more southern than Paula Deen so I tried her Southern Fried Chicken recipe.  I took out the Crisco (left over from the New York Hard Rolls) and one of Michael's big cast iron frying pans and off to work I went.  I must add that before I made the chicken, I also baked some southern style biscuits.  My self rising flour must be old because they just didn't rise..it has to be the flour and certainly not the cook! 

Here's the recipe for the chicken....

Southern Fried Chicken

Recipe courtesy Paula Deen

Prep Time:10 min

Cook Time:14 min

Level:Easy

Serves:4 servings

Ingredients

• 3 eggs
• 1/3 cup water
• About 1 cup hot red pepper sauce (recommended: Texas Pete)
• 2 cups self-rising flour
• 1 teaspoon pepper
• House seasoning, recipe follows
• 1 (1 to 2 1/2-pound) chicken, cut into pieces
• Oil, for frying, preferably peanut oil

Directions

In a medium size bowl, beat the eggs with the water. Add enough hot sauce so the egg mixture is bright orange. In another bowl, combine the flour and pepper. Season the chicken with the house seasoning. Dip the seasoned chicken in the egg, and then coat well in the flour mixture.

Heat the oil to 350 degrees F in a deep pot. Do not fill the pot more than 1/2 full with oil.

Fry the chicken in the oil until brown and crisp. Dark meat takes longer then white meat. It should take dark meat about 13 to 14 minutes, white meat around 8 to 10 minutes.

House Seasoning:

• 1 cup salt
• 1/4 cup black pepper
• 1/4 cup garlic powder

Mix ingredients together and store in an airtight container for up to 6

I of course made a few adjustments to the recipe.  I was using 3 legs and 3 thighs (hopes of an outstanding meal) so I only used 2 eggs.  I used a different hot sauce and cut it way back to probably 1/4 of a cup.  I only used 1 and 1/3 cup of flour and that was still way too much and I salt and peppered the chicken instead of the mixture.  Michael told me after wards that cast iron doesn't work that well on electric ranges which is why I didn't get the crispy coating on the chicken I desired.  We are going to invest in a thermometer so I can check the oil to make sure it is really hot.

So all in all, it wasn't a fail, it just didn't turn out the way I expected it to.