The challenge: 1) 4 recipes in one day, 2) getting a few friends together to enjoy some lunch/brunch-dinner or breakfast-whatever you call it- at the same time.
The first recipe is the easiest to prep and hardest to cook, usually: Fried Chicken.
Buttermilk Waffles sounds like a no-brainer, Black Pepper Maple Syrup a little challenging and Whipped Vanilla butter-how hard can that be? I'll focus primarily on the Fried Chicken in this blog.
The batter is easy, and should be prepared the night before. Mix some well shaken buttermilk with a Louisiana Red Hot Sauce 1 1/2 T. sugar, a Tbsp. of salt, 1 Tbsp. Sweet Paprika, 3 garlic cloves, smashed and One 3 1/2 pound chicken cut into 8 pieces.
I mixed the batter up the night before, put the cut up chicken into a gallon size bag and poured the batter over it. I left the chicken in the bag in the fridge to marinate overnight. In the morning I turned it when I woke-which was late. Then I began to prepare the other items. I realized somewhere along the line of making the waffle batter that I forgot to add the garlic. Suddenly, I'm searching my best friend's freezer for her garlic, wishing she left one head out on the counter as I do-but remembering, I cook with garlic almost daily.
I prepped the flour and began working on the recipes. Its kind of fun to attempt boiling maple syrup while mixing whipped vanilla butter and cleaning a boil over before you start the oil for the chicken.
I'm not great at frying chicken, I'm not sure I'm great at frying anything. I did not grow up southern, I don't recall my momma ever frying a chicken, much to my daddy's relief. As children, we learned early which parents were willing to feed us on a regular basis, and how to rotate our meals so that we didn't get sent home. I'm sure my daddy believed my mother would have caught something on fire if she'd have tried frying a chicken in any way.
Alas, now its my turn, and I love experimenting with things my mother had no willingness to learn. Of course, I've since learned a timer does wonders for the ability to cook without burning things. But I'm still not great at frying chicken, and I served it up with the precaution to cut into it first, I'd be more than happy to put the chicken back into the oil if it needed it. It did. I learned that when I think its done, give it another minute and a half, maybe two minutes. You want a pretty golden brown color that is almost all brown. No one explains things like this anymore, and since my momma couldn't cook, and grandma passed away over 10 years ago, I'm figuring all this out for myself. And we wonder why Julia Child is so popular. Next time, I'll pack the thermometer and some of the specialty ingredients I need. More about that in the other blogs.
The chicken still turned out good, especially with the Black Pepper Maple Syrup poured over it. Its amazing how something so sweet can make savory food like fried chicken or sausage taste better.
I may also take stock in candy thermometers as I have drowned or broken more than I care to admit, and see myself doing so in the future. I will simply, slowly acquire a drawer full over time, or at least a couple of old coffee mugs. Then I can regulate my heat, and with a timer, maybe I'll get into chicken frying. Later, if I attempt to make this recipe healthier, I'll even try baking the chicken pieces.
It was still fun to make these recipes and serve them to friends on a Sunday afternoon.
I will definitely make this recipe again, for friends. But I may have to do a test run or two to be sure I'm ready to present.
I like maple syrup on scrambled eggs.
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