My Culinary Bucket List

If you fry it twice, it must be twice as good, right?

I guess we all have a few things that we want to have done before we kick said bucket.  I have a few myself.  Some personal, and some, well...culinary.  Since this blog is about food, I guess it's pretty plain to see which one I will attempt to try today.  I admire a person who can cook a few food items that have always seemed to elude me.  Being that I am from the south(ish), more specifically from Texas, you can probably guess that it would be a fried something or a carb.  In which case, if you did guess that, you'd be right.  I will learn to make (at some point) the perfect fried chicken, homemade rolls, and flour tortillas.  Of course, given my self imposed guidelines for this blog, I am limited to finding these recipes in a magazine.

I highly recommend using one of these.

Well, I was in luck.  Granted, Cook's Country had a honey fried chicken, but I felt that was close enough.  There are so many variables when frying a piece of meat that can make you sick if you don't cook it properly.  What kind of stove top you are using, how big the chicken pieces are, if the person who is cooking the chicken is a completely incapable of doing so...That, and if you cook it too long, it tastes like sawdust, it can be too greasy, soggy, I mean the list goes on and on.  It was more than a little nerve racking.  I definitely pulled out a thermometer to watch the oil's temperature and the internal one to check the chicken after it came out of the oil.  I have the upmost admiration for all those mothers and grandmothers out there who just have done it so often and so well, they don't need the gadgets.  God only knows, I am not one of them (yet).

 After all was said and done, I had followed the direction within an inch of my life, this chicken better be good.  My kitchen looked like I had danced around spilling oil, sugar, and cornstarch as I went, plate and thermometers strewn around the room.  (Make sure your dishwasher is empty before you start) I was sticky and tired but....it actually worked!  I think everyone was as shocked as I was that it actually turned out really well.  I do have a question for all you chicken frying gurus....what do you do with all that oil?  Seems like a lot to just toss.  I tossed it, but my inclination was to save it for some reason... Also, what is the best way to get honey and oil out of clothing and hair?  Oh well...details, details. Regardless, a perfect fried chicken is marked off the list.  Bucket list...smucket list....

The chicken after brining
(I mostly posted this picture to
show that I did serve a vegetable
with the fried food)

The Ingredients

The Batter

The chicken after the first round of
frying

The honey and hot sauce glaze
(holy moly, that was good!)

Chicken after the second round of frying
(before the glaze)

Honey Fried Chicken!!!!

Cook's Country Aug/Sept 2012