Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Green Betty Fries Chicken

Ingredients
2.5-3 lbs chicken pieces (We use Kevin Veinotte's free range, organic birds)

Kosher salt

1 minced onion

2 cloves garlic, pressed (This ingredient I grew myself!)

3 C buttermilk

1 t guajillo powder

1 t ancho powder (all our chile powders come from Native Seeds)

1 t cracked black pepper

3/4 C flour

1/4 C cornmeal (both this and the flour are available organically and locally from Speerville Mills)

2 C vegetable fats

1 stick organic butter

Directions
Lightly coat the chicken pieces in kosher salt and pile them up in a bowl, cover and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Combine buttermilk, onions, and garlic.

Rinse chicken well and add to buttermilk. Marinade for between 8 and 24 hours (the longer the marinade, the more distinct the buttermilk/allium scent to the meat. I like it at about 12 hours.)

Combine flour, chiles, pepper, and cornmeal in a big ziplock; shake it all around until thoroughly blended. Remove chicken from buttermilk mixture, shake off the excess, and shake it all around inside the bag. Put it on a piece of waxed paper for 20 or 30 minutes.

Heat the fat and butter in a 12 inch cast iron skilled on moderately high heat (7.5, on my stove dial). Add 1/3 of the chicken pieces, reduce heat to low (2 on my stove) and cook for 10 minutes. Turn and cook for another 12 minutes (legs and thighs) or 8 minutes (breasts). Transfer chicken to a paper towel and drain before eating or storing.

I took this to the one year anniversary party for Lalanova. The compliments are going to keep me fat-headed for about a week.

1 comment:

Egg Mama said...

Oh dude. My mouth is watering. I have never in my life actually fried chicken. It sounds like a pretty elaborate process! (Well, for someone like me, anyway.) But I can almost taste the battery goodness just from reading your description. Why, oh why don't you live down the block so we could attend the same potlucks?? ;)