So while visiting friends in
Austin the conversation turned to all the strange things I cook-- pies with leaf lard and curing my own bacon and so on-- and one thing I said was that I'd been trying to learn how to make really good fried chicken. And that I'd progressed pretty quickly in this because of having all the great advice and experience shared here on LTHForum, primarily in
this thread (named, ironically enough, for a recipe that didn't seem to work out for anybody).
Hmm, fried chicken, said our hostess, who's particularly interested in Southern cooking. Would you show me how you make fried chicken?
Well, again, I don't claim to be an expert. But having done it 9 or 10 times in the last year, with the help of all the information and advice in that thread, I do feel like I've gotten to be pretty darn good at it, good enough that I could at least get someone up to my speed pretty quickly. So I documented my process as I went along, and here is, from the collective LTH mind and containing the insight of a dozen or more folks, what I consider to be the basic LTHForum Fried Chicken process. Do this and you'll get up to pretty good quickly, and can then spend the rest of your life getting to great.
THE LTHFORUM FRIED CHICKEN PROCESS
1. The first thing I remembered was the advice of Eatchicago:
Eatchicago wrote:As far as I'm concerned, if you don't have a cast iron skillet, you aren't going to be eating fried chicken any time soon.
Also, unless you have a lot of experience frying on your stove with your pans, you'll definitely want a thermometer. Oil temperature can make or break a fried dish.
So I dispatched them to Bed Bath & Beyond, which they came back from with an Emeril cast iron skillet and a Taylor digital thermometer. I promptly cleaned and seasoned the skillet with a little peanut oil.
2. Next, we put the chicken in a brine consisting of buttermilk, a little paprika (I use cayenne or hot sauce at home but her father always used paprika, so paprika it was-- after all, ultimately you're out to evoke the memory of fried chicken from childhood), and some chopped onion. There are many other brines you could use (and I suppose technically this isn't really a brine, although it does get some salt from the buttermilk), but this one is easy and works for me.

3. Eight or nine hours later, I made a coating with these spices and flour (no corn meal, nothing but straight all-purpose flour):

Normally, I try to stick with as few distinct spices as possible. But I got the idea for using garlic and onion powder from some online recipe and I think it's really helped the flavor of the coating-- you don't taste either, perceptibly, but they sharpen the flavor just like salt and pepper do. Likewise, I don't toss in enough sage that you say "Thanksgiving gravy," just enough that chicken tastes more like chicken. The main thing, really, is to not be afraid of the salt and pepper. Use lots, the coating on any individual piece of chicken won't have that much in it.
4. I take the chicken straight from the buttermilk into the coating. (No egg wash.) Since it wasn't previously brined in salt water, it shouldn't be too salty at this point to do so (in fact my problem has usually been the other way). Set on a rack to dry, because:
BR wrote:When you let the chicken rest, did you make sure that the pieces were thoroughly coated with the breading and dried? Gummy fried chicken is usually the result of the breading on the chicken not being dry enough when you place the chicken in the oil.

5. Put a quarter inch of oil in the skillet and heat to 370F. I use-- I think Evil Ronnie suggested this in person one time-- a heaping tablespoon or two of bacon fat tossed in along with peanut oil. If you don't want to do that, I also liked G Wiv's peanut oil plus a tablespoon or two of olive oil-- but I like the bacon fat (from my homemade natural bacon) better.

6. Chicken in, careful not to crowd or touch. Before, I brought the temperature back up to 350 to 370F. The result was usually a skin turned too dark. Now I aim for more like 325F as a cooking temperature, and that seems to work fine.

7. Turn the chicken after 10 minutes or so, mainly judging by color.

8. I can't judge doneness of fried, coated chicken. So I just stab it a lot with the thermometer and make sure it's all at least 165-170F (I know the government says 180F or more, I say that's enough). Take it out and tell me that isn't beautiful!

9. Follow with homemade peach pie.

So that's my interpretation of our collective wisdom on fried chicken. Anyone have any alternative steps or insights? I mean, beyond the words of Evil Ronnie:
Evil Ronnie wrote:Perfect southern style fried chicken is almost as close as cooking gets an art form. You really didn't expect to reach nirvana on your maiden voyage, did you?
Pinchas Zuckerman and Itzhac Perlman still practice five hours a day. Get yourself a cast iron skillet and keep frying.