A few years ago friend, mentor and occasional son-of-a-bitch Ed came back from a business trip to Atlanta swearing he’d eaten the best fried chicken on the planet.
This was back in the day when Scott Peacock was cooking at The Watershed in Atlanta; this point of history being significant in that Peacock had been mentored by Edna Lewis, one of the genuine queens of southern cooking. As the story goes, Peacock learned how to really cook fried chicken under her watchful eye.
And of course Ed dined at The Watershed; apparently scoring Scott’s autograph on a napkin after creating a bit of a ruckus.
Ed recounted with unusual enthusiasm his experience eating the most succulent, tender, juicy fried chicken he’d ever tasted there and demanded that we help him ‘figure out how to make it, dammit’.
That led to what She Who Must Be Obeyed now recounts as the Never-Ending Fried Chicken Summer during which we experimented with various brines, buttermilk soaks and seasoning mixes to at least get close to the (pretty damned much unattainable) fried chicken nirvana Ed continued to describe with vigor.
Belying a prodigious vocabulary, Ed continued to depict the brine and buttermilk soak intervals as ‘swimmin’ the chicken’, hence the eventual recipe name above.
As to cooking the chicken in lard (not the hydrogenated poison in the box) and butter, keeping temperatures high keeps fat absorption minimal and the rich hint of porcine flavor kicks this over the top. Try it once and you’ll probably never grab a bottle of canola off the shelf again (canola having it’s own very serious set of health related baggage coming to light lately as well…).
While not an every week meal (though Ed certainly would if he could) this is one of those you have to roll up your sleeves and do this summer or fall. Set up the brine late one evening, roll to the buttermilk soak the next morning and you’ll be ready to rumble come evening.
I’ll take a wing, a thigh and a breast please.
Brine
2 quarts water
1/2 cup kosher salt
1/3 cup sugar
2 bay leaves
2 tsp. black peppercorns
1 tsp. thymeChicken
1 three pound chicken, cut up
1 quart buttermilk
3 cups flour
2 tbsp. cornstarch
1 and 1/2 tbsp. paprika
1 tbsp. cayenne
1 tbsp. fresh ground pepper
1 tsp. salt1 pound lard (not the hydrogenated stuff in the box)
1 stick unsalted butter
Brine it. Stir the kosher salt and sugar into the (cold) water until dissolved; add the bay leaves, peppercorns and thyme. Place the chicken parts in a nonreactive bowl and add brine to cover. Refrigerate at bare minimum four hours, best overnight.
Buttermilk it. Drain the brined chicken and rinse out the bowl; return the chicken and cover completely in buttermilk. Back to the fridge for 8 hours or so. Thirty minutes before your cook time, drain the chicken pieces on a rack and hold on to the buttermilk.
Meanwhile, melt it down. Prepare the frying skillet (cast iron of course) or dutch oven by melting the lard and butter over low heat and simmering until the butter stops foaming.
Dredge it. Combine the flour, cornstarch, paprika, cayenne, fresh ground pepper and salt in a paper or plastic bag. Dredge two pieces at a time in the flour, return for a buttermilk dip and then dredge again (carefully to not knock the crust off) in the flour. Let the battered chicken pieces dry on a wire rack for 30 minutes or so.
Fry it. Heat the oil to 335 to 350 and slide a few pieces in, tracking white and dark separately . Cook for 6 or 7 minutes then turn, cook for another 8-10 minutes for white meat and 10-12 minutes for dark. Your oil will cool to 300-310 after adding the chicken, that’s the target range, though you may need to turn it down if it browns too quickly. Drain on a wire rack over paper towels.
Serve it. Like just about all fried chicken this will be great hot, warm or cold. Tastes even better eaten off a paper plate with a big scoop of cold potato salad and another of chow chow. Even better if you’re sitting outside on a wooden porch swing with a cold adult beverage and an attractive member of the opposite sex.
Enjoy.
