It's SUMMER! Time for Fried Chicken!

Memorial Day has passed, and it's officially SUMMER, for all intents and purposes.  It used to be that a staple of picnics and pitch-ins was fried chicken, and NOT from a red-and-white-striped bucket.

I pulled out my cast iron skillet and made fried chicken a couple of days ago, and it always gets the same comment from That Man - "This is better than KFC!"  I used split chicken breasts instead of the skinless boneless Chick-zilla breasts I usually buy, but darned if those split breasts, which were even from a different company, were still HUGE - 2 1/2 pounds, and only TWO breasts in the package.  I had to cut them in half with my trusty kitchen shears.

Fried chicken really ought to be made with bone-in chicken with the skin on, but you can still make it with boneless, skinless breasts or thighs.  It's up to you, of course!

I used to just buy one of the prepared fry mixes, like Drake's or Kentucky Kernel, but I always ended by doctoring them up.  This recipe for my fry mix should be enough for 5 to 6 pounds of chicken.  I used half for those two monster split breasts, and there wasn't more than a spoonful left, so I just sprinkled it over the chicken pieces once I had them in the pan.


Fried Chicken

5-6 lb cut-up chicken (rinsed and patted dry with a paper towel)

1 c all-purpose flour
5 t seasoned salt
1 t pepper
1 t paprika
1 t poultry seasoning
1 t Montreal grilling seasoning for chicken
1/8 t ginger
1/8 t MSG (optional)

1 c Crisco shortening (one stick, if you buy it that way)
1/4 c bacon fat (optional, but everything's better with bacon!)

If making the full recipe, you'll need two 12-inch skillets with lids, or a large electric skillet with a lid.  Melt the Crisco and bacon fat at medium-low heat while you make the mix and dredge the chicken.

In a medium bowl, whisk together all the dry ingredients.  Dredge each piece of chicken in the prepared mix, coating each piece thoroughly.  Set the coated pieces on a sheet pan while you finish dredging all the pieces. 

Turn up the heat to about medium.  Start with the first piece and dredge each piece in turn a second time.  After all the pieces have been dredged twice, place them in the skillet(s) skin side down (if you're using bone-in chicken with skin), or what would have been the skin side down (if you're using boneless skinless pieces).  Cover the skillet(s).  Turn down the heat to somewhere around medium-low, so the chicken is gently sizzling.  You may need to turn it down a little more.  Cook 20 minutes on each side.

Using tongs, transfer the chicken from the skillet(s) to a paper-towel-lined sheet pan to catch any excess fat.  Dig in!

The BEST Way to Cook Bacon

Cooking bacon in a skillet is messy, messy, messy, and the bacon usually isn't cooked evenly.  Part is nearly raw and limp, part is too crisp and almost burned, and the rest is how you want it.  Not ideal.

You can cook bacon in the microwave, and it comes out pretty good - evenly cooked and fairly flat, but all those paper towels!  What a waste!!!

You can buy pre-cooked bacon, but it's relatively expensive, and there aren't as many flavor/thickness combinations as there are in raw bacon.

Bacon fat in a jar.

But if you cook bacon in the OVEN, whoa!  It comes out evenly cooked and flat, and you only need one or two paper towels to soak up the excess grease.  Most of the bacon fat stays in the pan, and it's really easy to save it by pouring it into a glass jar and refrigerating it.

You can cook an entire package at one time, and if you're not going to use it all, you can either freeze or refrigerate the cooked bacon and use it one slice at a time.  Just zap it in the microwave and you can make a nice, warm bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich.

Some recipes will have you cook some bacon, then add things to the bacon and its fat.  In those cases, I start with some of my refrigerated bacon fat, add some of my pre-cooked bacon, get it hot, and there you are - just continue with the recipe as written.

So here it is...


Oven-Cooked Bacon

1 package bacon (1 lb regular thickness or 1 1/2 lb extra thick)
sheet pan (well, technically a half-sheet pan!)

Lots of ingredients, right?  Well, it's not really a recipe - more like instructions!

So, preheat the oven to 400 degrees and set the rack in the lower third of the oven.  (If you want the bacon extra crispy, put the rack in the lowest position).  Separate the bacon slices and place them on in the sheet pan in a single layer.  You can shove the slices as close together as you possibly can - just don't overlap them.

Put the pan in the oven.  Cook about 20 minutes for regular bacon, and about 30 minutes for extra thick.  Check it about 5-10 minutes before it's supposed to be done.

While the bacon is cooking, put one or two paper towels on a plate.  When the bacon is finished, carefully remove the pan from the oven.  There will be lots of bacon fat in the pan and it is HOT.  Don't get burned, and don't spill it!

Using tongs, remove the slices of bacon from the pan and put them on the paper towel-lined plate to soak up the excess fat.  Store or serve.

If desired, let the fat cool for several minutes.  While it's still liquid, pour it into a GLASS jar.  Put a lid on it and refrigerate.  Use it where you usually use bacon fat or shortening for cooking.