More Fried Chicken

I recently finished reading Ruth Reichl's Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table. In one chapter, she talks about camping out in an Ann Arbor "integrated" bar in the 60s for a sociology paper. Given my recent study of frying chicken, I knew I had to make "Claritha's fried chicken" for the Superbowl.





(taken from Tender at the Bone, but haphazardly re-imagined while imbibing and shooing small children away from hot oil)

Claritha's Fried Chicken

The day before

• Rinse 2-3 packages of chicken wings (know where your chicken is coming from) in cold water. Toss with copious amounts of kosher salt in a bowl (2-3 handfuls). Let sit 2 hours. Rinse in cold water a few times.
• Slice two onions very thinly. Dump wings into one or two large ziploc bags. Cover with buttermilk. Sprinkle in slice onions. Toss/massage ziplocs to combine ingredients. Refridgerate overnight.

An hour before guests arrive

• Combine 1 cup flour + good hanful of salt + dash of cayenne + several grounds of black pepper in a new ziploc bag.
• Drain chicken from buttermilk/onion mixture. Add a few pieces at a time to seasoned flour bag and toss thoroughly to coat. Important step: Place floured chicken pieces on wax or parchment paper to dry. Let sit 30 minutes to dry out.

15 minutes before guests arrive

• While chicken is drying out, melt 1 cup vegetable shortening (that's Crisco to us Southerners) and 1/2 stick of butter over medium-low heat in heavy pan (cast iron is best). [Here's where it might pay to either do some frying research to see what temp is recommended - or just prepare to adjust as you go based on how fast the chicken is cooking.]
• Test one wing in the oil to see if it's the right temp. When you're convinced the oil is at the perfect temperature, tenderly place just enough wings in the hot oil so you're efficient but not overcrowding the pan.
• Turn and cook until the desired browness and internal temperature. Remove from oil and either drain on paper towel-lined plate or a cooling rack over a baking sheet. Sprinkle with a little salt.

As far as serving - I like to save half the chicken for a purist's enjoyment of good ole fried chicken. Since it was Superbowl, I tossed half the fried chicken in the traditional Frank's Red Hot Original. Both versions are taken to another level when drizzled with clover honey.

Fried Chicken Throwdown: ad hoc at home v momofuku

Recently my foodie friend Adam (follow him @adampasick) and I decided to pit our newest cookbooks against each other: Thomas Keller's ad hoc at home versus David Chang's Momofuku. I'm all for the recent fried chicken craze and couldn't wait to see if Keller's Buttermilk Fried Chicken (p. 16) could beat Chang's Fried Chicken (p. 88) with Octo Vinaigrette (pg. 107).




Keller comes off as exacting, precise and intense - even in a cookbook about family-style cooking. (Case in point: My cousin, who did an internship at the French Laundry, pointed out the picture of the spices on page 17, noting that there was a certain point when a new dictum was issued: tape labels for spices need to be cut straight with scissors, not ripped with jagged edges. Geez!) Chang is just as intense, if not more complicated - not sure when I'll be taking a blow torch to a pig head to remove the stubborn hair tufts - yet laid back about swapping ingredients "that are a total pain in the ass to find". Love that he has a dirty mouth. The one question he always asks about a dish: "Is it fucking delicious?" Amen.



Who doesn't love friend chicken? But these two recipes couldn't be more different. And these are not school night recipes - both require weekend warrior effort.



The Momofuku chicken is brined, steamed, fried and then doused in octo vinaigrette (which is crack addictive). The ad hoc chicken is brined too - for 12 hours in a lemon-herb brine and then double dipped in buttermilk and paprika-seasoned flour.




Since the chicken is brined with salt and sugar, it doesn't need much time in the fryer but it browns up nice and quick. A quick soak in octo vinaigrette (garlic, ginger, chile, rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, grapeseed oil, sesame oil + sugar) and you're done. Eating resulted in food buzz moans.


The herb-lemon brine did make the meat intensely juicy and flavorful (next time I'll measure more carefully since I halved the recipe and only used bone-in chicken breasts). The double-dip method of seasoned flour, then buttermilk, then another dip in seasoned flour did make a tender, light, flaky crust. The deep fried rosemary = you just took it to 11.