Kentucky-Style Fried Chicken

Molly53's Note:

When fast-food restaurants first started, their goal was to serve good, old-fashioned, country-style home-cooking. These days, it's the reverse...home cooks try to reproduce fast-food. A recipe such as this is what Colonel Sanders wanted to mass market as good as home-cooking when he established KFC, but this old timey recipe is *nothing* like take-out food. This is NOT a copycat recipe for Colonel Harland Sanders' world-famous Kentucky Fried Chicken. If you are in the mood for take-out chicken, please pass this recipe on by. From the Southern chapter of the United States Regional Cookbook, Culinary Arts Institute of Chicago, 1947 Lovely served with griddlecakes, waffles, mashed potatoes or hominy grits. Don't forget the cream gravy! Cooking time approximate

• Total Time: 40 mins
• Prep Time: 30 mins
• Cook Time: 10 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 4

• 1 medium whole chicken , cut into serving pieces
• 1 ½ cups flour , sifted
• 1 teaspoon salt (to taste)
• pepper , to taste
• 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
• 1 egg
• ½ cup milk (or more as needed for a smooth batter)
• fat or oil , for frying

Directions:

1. Steam or poach chicken until tender (I like to poach it in chicken stock); dry and keep cool until time to fry (it is convenient to do thes the day before if a large quantity is needed).
2. Just before frying, make a batter of the remaining ingredients.
3. Preheat fat or oil to 380°F.
4. Dip each piece of steamed chicken in batter and fry until a beautiful golden brown.

Reviews

[cliffy75]

Excellent The whole family loved this recipe, I did need too add extra milk to the recipe other than that everything else i done the same.
Thanks for the recipe it's great.

[1Steve]

I would have given it 5 stars, but the milk amount is just too far off. Everyone seems to be having a problem with the amount listed. I know it says "or more as needed for a smooth batter", but I had to at least double it not to end up with the consistency of a heavy muffin batter. Once I adjusted the milk, the results were very good. I have never had luck frying chicken before. Usually my coating is done way before the chicken is cooked through. This recipe solves that problem wonderfully. From that stand point this is the only recipe for fried chicken I will ever make again! The batter reminds me of Weaver brand batter dipped chicken. I also think that you could probably experiment by adding different seasonings to this batter to get Italian style or any other flavor combination you could come up with. I'm also thinking of taking your tip of steam cooking the chicken first, and trying it out leaving the baking powder out, to see how it works with a non batter type recipe. I'll bet it makes a crisp fried chicken that way, and continues to solve my problem of over done coating with underdone chicken. Thanks for sharing Molly, this recipe gives me plenty of ideas to play with. If you change the milk amount like most of the reviewers said, I'd change my rating to 5 stars.

[mickeydownunder]

I TOTALLY agree with last review! As I had to add a bit more milk for the batter too! I think if you DON'T expect it to be EXACTLY like KFC, Just "accept" this recipe as it was MEANT to be! I too steam cooked chicken, will make again, I got from DH, "BUT WHEN?" lol Thanks!