Summer, Finally!

It took its sweet time getting here, but we finally have something resembling summer. It’s been in the mid to high 70’s the past few days, and not a drop of rain! Hooray!

In honor of the nice weather, I hauled the wheel out to the deck for a bit of spinning.

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Yes, that’s plain white fiber. I bought pounds of plain white fiber in a couple of different wool varieties. This is Bluefaced Leicester. I intended to dye this using some of my plant dyes, but decided it’s less tricky to spin it first, then dye it. This is such nice stuff that it’s not boring at all to spin, even if it’s not dyed. I’m easily entertained.

Marilyn asked about my fried chicken recipe in the comments earlier this week. After I sent it to her, she suggested you all might like it, so here it is.

Lorette’s Fried Chicken

Chicken parts-make more than you think you’ll eat, people eat this like they haven’t had a meal in weeks.

Self rising flour, enough to dip your chicken. You really need the self rising kind to get a nice finish.

Add salt and pepper to taste to the flour.

Grate a bit of fresh nutmeg into the flour as well.

Mix the flour and seasonings all together and put in one dish.

In another dish pour buttermilk, enough to dip chicken pieces into.
Dip the chicken pieces in the flour mix, then the buttermilk, then back into the flour, coating well. Coat just enough to cook one batch at a time, if it sits too long it tends to get a bit soggy.

Set the coated chicken pieces on another plate or a big sheet pan and let sit for 15 minutes. The waiting period is essential as well to get that nice bubbly crispy coating.

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This is pretty easy, though a bit messy. I use a huge cast iron deep skillet, and crisco to fry. Fill up the skillet about half full or a little less with the melted crisco, remember it can run over when you add the chicken.  It can make a nasty kitchen fire if it runs over onto burners, so be careful. I have a fire extinguisher in my kitchen and know how to use it, but it would be the last resort, any food on the stove would be ruined, and it probably wouldn’t do the cooktop any good either. A box of baking soda can put out a grease fire in a pinch also. It’s best to not fill your pan too much, the melted fat should come up about half way or a little more on the chicken pieces. And don’t overheat your fat; if it starts to smoke turn off the heat, or you’ll risk a flare up and a fire.

I also cut up brown paper bags and cover the floor around the stovetop. Seriously, do this. It makes clean up easier.

Now fry your chicken. Heat the crisco, then add the chicken pieces, then cover and fry for 10 minutes covered. Adjust your heat so the oil is bubbling a bit but not so much that it’s bubbling out of the pan.

Uncover and cook another 25 minutes, turning once or maybe twice if needed to brown nicely. This is where you need your kitchen fan and a mesh fryer screen to keep the oil mostly contained.

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When there is about 15 minutes left in the cooking time, coat your next batch of chicken so it’s ready to go when the first one is all cooked and crispy.

Drain the done chicken on brown paper bags.  I usually cook several batches, it’s fine served at room temperature and terrific cold. It’s also really terrific leftover, skinned and cut up to make chicken salad.

Get somebody else to clean the cooktop if possible.

Go forth and make chicken!

Author: Lorette

My name is Lorette. I learned to knit in 1999, and took up spinning in 2009. I'm a physician specializing in internal medicine, and live in the Pacific Northwest. Enjoy my blog!

5 thoughts on “Summer, Finally!”

  1. Yummy! I like the “get somebody else to clean the cooktop” part too. That’s a girl after my own heart. 🙂

  2. We were just watching a cooking channel program on fried chicken. Although they focused on restaurants, it did make me want to try it at home. My mom made the best fried chicken, even though she wasn’t that great a cook. And I remember that she used Crisco. I’ve shied away from using that for health reasons, but hey – if the doctor recommends it, it must be ok.

  3. Yum. We’ve had a glimmer of summer (some miserable days in the 90s), but it has settled down to be unusually cool and extremely rainy. My lettuce is loving it, but not much else (human or floral) is. I wish I could send some your way to have with that wonderful chicken.

  4. Your comment about cleaning the cooktop brought back memories of my grandmother putting down newspaper all over the kitchen before she’d cook fried chicken – the floor, counters and stove. I still don’t know how she avoided a fire but cleanup was a breeze!

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