fried chicken

Boneless Fried Chicken with Carolina Shrimp Bog

This week’s recipe is unique for a couple reasons. First, it is the result of collaboration with my new friends at American Kitchen Cookware, who sent me a set of their American-made cast aluminum cookware to test and share with you folks – be sure to keep scrolling for more info on their products, and a giveaway for a set of your own.

The second reason this recipe is unique is because it is actually two dishes in one. Both the Boneless Fried Chicken and Carolina Shrimp Bog would be excellent on their own, but a) I wanted to highlight two distinct pieces of cookware, and b) I was drawn to the challenge of writing you through the process of building two dishes at once. Crafting a single recipe is relatively easy, but balancing multiple dishes to create one whole meal is more reflective of how most of us spend time in the kitchen; I hope this week’s recipe will give you some insight into how I tackle multiple tasks simultaneously.

When it comes to frying chicken, I’ve made a few breakthroughs over the years, and this Boneless Fried Chicken is like a culmination of those efforts. To start, we’re going to use the seasoning I developed in last year’s Seasoned Southern Fried Chicken recipe, which has a flavor not unlike what you’d find from Colonel Sander’s secret 11 herbs and spices. Next, we’re going to use boneless thighs to speed up the cooking process. Finally, we’re going to use a traditional 3-step breading for the chicken, but with potato starch, eggs, and crushed pork rinds for the different coatings – a technique I use in my Tonkatsu/Chicken Katsu recipes in Paleo Takeout – which gives the chicken a crispy crust and unforgettable bite.

Joining the chicken is Shrimp Bog, a simple, thick Southern stew of rice, veggies, and (you guessed it) shrimp. While “Bog” isn’t the most appealing word to describe food, it is a little fitting, since this dish is a more liquidy version of another Carolina staple, Perloo (which is sometimes spelled Purloo, Perlo, Poilu, or Pilau – the latter definitely linked to its Pilaf origins). In the Carolinas, these two dishes were traditionally made with Carolina-grown rice, which fell out of favor as other Southern rices dominated our grocery shelves over the past couple centuries. Recently, Carolina Gold heirloom rice has been making a bit of a comeback among foodies and historians (here is an excellent writeup), and for good reason – the rice is creamy and nutty in a way that’s seldom found in long-grain rices – well worth the extra expense to try it once, if only to experience a bit of American history.

Read Full Article

Seasoned Southern Fried Chicken

About four years ago, I posted a recipe for Southern Fried Chicken, which quickly became one of the more popular recipes on this site. I liked the recipe so much that I ended up adding it to my first cookbook, The Ancestral Table, and then improving it for my second cookbook, Paleo Takeout, to incorporate seasonings similar to those you’d find at a certain famous fried chicken chain restaurant (you know, the kind that comes in a bucket).

As I mentioned in that first fried chicken post, this dish is the convergence of three different events. First, the West African practice of frying chicken was brought to the US as a result of the slave trade. Second, the mass production of pork in the South resulted in an excess of lard for cooking. And finally, cast-iron cookware became a staple of every kitchen during the 19th century. It’s only natural that these elements came together as they did, to create one of the tastiest ways to prepare chicken.

Colonel Harland Sanders first started selling fried chicken during the Great Depression, in Kentucky, and opened his first franchise restaurant in 1952; his success challenged the assumption that “fast food” was limited to hamburgers. His original recipe of “11 herbs and spices” was finalized in 1940, and has been a closely guarded secret ever since. In honor of the original Kentucky Fried Chicken recipe, I also used 11 herbs and spices (although, to be fair, the pinch of thyme used in my recipe was added mostly to reach 11!).

The original preparation for KFC chicken was through traditional pan-frying, but it would take upwards of 30 minutes to prepare one batch of chicken. Ultimately, Colonel Sanders modified a pressure cooker to make the first pressure fryer, which is the method they use today. For my recipe, we’ll be returning to KFC’s roots and pan-frying the chicken – no modified pressure cooker needed.

Read Full Article

Gluten-Free Southern Fried Chicken

NOTE: An updated version of this recipe appears in my cookbook, The Ancestral Table.

We don’t eat fried foods that often, but every once in a while I get a craving for something crispy and crunchy. So I set out to make a gluten-free, Paleo-friendly Southern Fried Chicken. Bear in mind that this isn’t a smart choice for your everyday meals, but it’s a great way to change things up every once in a while.

The creation of Southern Fried Chicken is the result of several different influences: fried chicken was a West African delicacy brought over to the US by slaves, the mass-production of pork in the South made lard readily available, and the popularity of cast iron cookware in the 19th century created the fried chicken we now associate with the South. I kept my recipe true to those historical precedents, including the use of buttermilk as a marinade. If you’re dairy-free, omitting the buttermilk marinade will still leave you with a pretty tasty fried chicken.

Read Full Article