Home Made Fried Chicken

There is nothing quite like home grown chicken cut up and fried. :) This week we'll be ordering our next batch of fryers... this time not so many (last year we did 115!) just enough for us to take a couple to the fair. So to remind myself it's worth it, I pulled a chicken from the freezer and made fried chicken again... and of course, tweaked the recipe a little more. ;)

I used a Food Network recipe from Paula Deen, and made some adjustments. 

Ingredients:

3 eggs

1/3 cup water

1/3 hot red pepper sauce 

2 cups flour sifted with 1 Tbs. baking powder

1 package of crushed saltine crackers (my addition)

1 teaspoon pepper

1 (1 to 2 1/2-pound) chicken, cut into pieces

Oil, for frying, preferably peanut oil, but I used Canola with good results

House Seasoning:
3/4 cup salt
1/4 cup black pepper
1/4 cup garlic salt
1 Tbs. onion powder
Mix ingredients together and store in an airtight container for up to 6 months.

Directions

In a medium size bowl, beat the eggs and mix with the water and enough hot sauce so the egg mixture is orange. In another bowl, combine the flour, crackers, 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 350F 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. Keeping the oil temp at 350F was important. I also preheated the oven to 350F, keeping a glass baking dish in there to hold the pieces that came out of the fryer as I worked in batches. I fried the dark meat first, then moved it to the glass pan in the oven, then I fried the white meat second. It worked really well that way. :)

For more on our chickens from last year, and how to cut up a whole chicken, see my original post here. 

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