Does this recipe sound totally wrong to anyone else?

[hippywife]

I got my ATK/Cooks Illustrated "monthly" email newsletter (which seems to come about every two weeks, in not sooner. :shrug: )

This is one they published in 2001 for The Ultimate Fried Chicken. It just doesn't sound right on many levels? Anyone else think it's way over the top on some of the ingredients?

The Ultimate Crispy Fried Chicken
Published: May 1, 2001
Serves 4 to 6

Maintaining an even oil temperature is key to the success of this recipe. An instant-read thermometer with a high upper range is perfect for checking the temperature; a clip-on candy/deep-fry thermometer is fine, though it can be clipped to the pot only for the uncovered portion of frying.

INGREDIENTS
1 1/4 cups kosher salt or 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons table salt
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons paprika
3 medium heads garlic , cloves separated
3 bay leaves , crumbled
2 quarts buttermilk (low fat)
1 whole chicken (about 3 1/2 pounds), giblets discarded, cut into 12 pieces (see illustrations
below)
4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 large egg
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3–4 cups refined peanut oil or vegetable shortening

See Illustrations Below: Cutting it Down to Size

1. In large zipper-lock plastic bag, combine salt, sugar, paprika, garlic cloves, and bay leaves. With rubber mallet or flat meat pounder, smash garlic into salt and spice mixture thoroughly. Pour mixture into large plastic container or nonreactive stockpot. Add 7 cups buttermilk and stir until salt is completely dissolved. Immerse chicken and refrigerate until fully seasoned, 2 to 3 hours. Remove chicken from buttermilk brine and shake off excess; place in single layer on large wire rack set over rimmed baking sheet. Refrigerate uncovered for 2 hours. (After 2 hours, chicken can be covered with plastic wrap and refrigerated up to 6 hours longer.)

2. Measure flour into large shallow dish. Beat egg, baking powder, and baking soda in medium bowl; stir in remaining 1 cup buttermilk (mixture will bubble and foam). Working in batches of 3, drop chicken pieces in flour and shake pan to coat. Shake excess flour from each piece, then, using tongs, dip chicken pieces into egg mixture, turning to coat well and allowing excess to drip off. Coat chicken pieces with flour again, shake off excess, and return to wire rack.

3. Adjust oven rack to middle position, set second wire rack over second rimmed baking sheet, and place on oven rack; heat oven to 200 degrees. Line large plate with double layer paper towels. Meanwhile, heat oil (oil should have 2 1/2-inch depth in pan) to 375 degrees over medium-high heat in large 8-quart cast-iron Dutch oven with a diameter of about 12 inches. Place half of chicken pieces skin-side down in oil, cover, reduce heat to medium, and fry until deep golden brown, 6 to 8 minutes; after about 3 minutes, lift chicken pieces with tongs to check for even browning; rearrange if some pieces are browning faster than others. (Spot-check oil temperature; after first 6 minutes of frying, oil should be about 325 degrees. Adjust burner if necessary.) Turn chicken pieces over and continue to fry, uncovered, until chicken pieces are deep golden brown on second side, 6 to 8 minutes longer. Using tongs, transfer chicken to paper towel–lined plate; let stand 2 minutes to drain, then transfer to rack in warm oven. Replace paper towel–lining on plate. Return oil to 375 degrees and fry remaining pieces, transferring pieces to paper towel–lined plate to drain, then transferring to wire rack with other chicken pieces. Cool chicken pieces on wire rack about 5 minutes and serve.

[sandnsea]

1. Yeah

Maybe if you were doing 3 or 4 chickens or something. 1/2 cup salt for a chicken??? 3 heads of garlic? That's a bit much.

[hippywife]

3. Not to mention

four cups of flour but only one egg! Very strange.

[housewolf]

22. It's not too much for a brine

Sounds about right to me for a brine

[yellerpup]

2. Looks pretty much like a basic brine.

But, I've never seen one done with buttermilk before. A buttermilk soaking, yes, but buttermilk brine, uh-uh. I use water instead of buttermilk and will often soak (brine) the chicken in the refrigerator for longer than 6 hours. 8 hours seems okay. I also season the flour that I intend to use to coat the chicken. Also, I like thyme with chicken and will put some in the brine solution and in the coating flour along with paprika (gives a nice color) and will sometimes use herbs de Provence in both, too...depending on my mood. Brining is great to keep meats juicy, especially white meat of chicken or turkey that can get dried out fairly easily. I mainly use water instead of buttermilk because buttermilk is more expensive. The only thing in this recipe I've never seen before is the addition of baking soda in the flour mixture. Good luck with this. Let us know how it turns out if you decide to give it a shot.

[hippywife]

4. I definitely

will not be trying this recipe. I love the way I make it already.

:hi:

[pengillian101]

5. I definitely will not be trying this recipe. I love the way I make it already.

Good choice. It didn't sound good to me either.

For really simple basic recipes, you can't go wrong with a decades-old Betty Crocker recipe book.

If you don't have a book, do a google search on the recipe you want and add Betty Crocker to the search. Add 1971. Or another year. It
will amaze you.
<P>

[pengillian101]

6. Example

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&q=Fried+Chicken+betty+crocker

[hippywife]

9. But...

they recommend using Bisquick in the recipe. :shrug:

[hippywife]

7. All I do is mix

flour with Lawry's Season Salt, granulated garlic, course pepper, a little cayenne pepper. Beat a couple of eggs with a splash of milk. Dredge the chicken through both mixtures twice. It's messy on the fingers, but damn it's good! It's only one of two recipes I insist on using Lawry's for.

How ya doin? :hi:

[pengillian101]

20. Do you then fry it or bake it?

Sounds good!

I just tried a new chicken recipe, that is oh so tasty.

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Salsa-Chicken/Detail.aspx

I did it just a bit different than the recipe called for, of course. Put large piece of foil in pan and put salsa on the bottom, then the taco-spiced chicken, and salsa - wrapped up the foil and baked for 40 mins. Unwrapped and added mozzarella cheese instead of cheddar and put back in for another 5 minutes. MMM! I served w/pasta.

I have some tasty leftovers for wrapping in tortillas - or something, lol.

:hi: Doing well - how 'bout you? Bet you are super busy harvesting and putting up. Post pics if you get a chance :-)

Finally got enough tomatoes ripened to make salsa today.

[hippywife]

21. Fry it.

But I think the next time I'm going to fry half and bake the other half. As much as I love, love, love fried chicken, a nice baked chicken sounds nice, too.

Sounds like a great dinner with a good plan for the leftovers. You gonna shred it for the tortillas? I can just taste that shredded chicken in that scrumptious homemade salsa with some avocado slices, cheese and sour cream wrapped in warm tortillas. Yum! Good choice on changing up the cheese.

There wasn't much to harvest this year after that major storm we had. We managed to eat quite a few zukes, make plenty of pickles, and I got quite a bit of pesto in the freezer. There are some tomato plants that sprouted after the storm that are just now getting small fruit on them. Hopefully they will make it if the chickens don't eat them. The babies are getting too big to confine to their pen so they roam the garden quite a bit now during the day and have picked the lower leaves off the plants, but that may have actually helped them. They ate the last small scallopini squash today. We will probably have about five or six pumpkins. I'd really like to plant some fall/winter veggies but don't see the point if the chickens are going to be scratching in the boxes. They already nixed the late planting of sweet pepper and beet seeds. Oh, well.

I guess I didn't realize you were so far north. Gotta squeeze all you can into a short growing season no doubt. I've been meaning to post this in the gardening forum but this might really be helpful for you to extend the season:

http://www.noble.org/ag/Horticulture/MiniHoopHouse/index.html

That site has lots of really great info.

[dropkickpa]

12. My mom's 1969 Better Homes and Gardens cookbook

Is my favorite. She bought me a new one about 4 years ago, but many of the simple recipes were changed and were NOT better tasting.

[hippywife]

13. Maybe they will

do what Joy of Cooking did and publish an anniversary edition with absolutely everything in it from their beginning. Or have they done that?

[dropkickpa]

14. Oooo, I didn't think of that!

My mom has told me I'm gonna have to pry her from her cold dead fingers. Off to search the interweb!

[yellerpup]

8. Didn't you post some photos of your fried chicken?

I think I remember having to get a tissue because the sight of it started my salivary glands up with a jolt. I use a NY Times Magazine (maybe from around 1980) recipe that Calvin Trillin got from a cook with a following in Kansas City. She was known as "Chicken Betty" and it is a no-fail method that requires two cast iron skillets to pull off to perfection. I love garlic, but I had to wonder when I saw so much of it in the soaking liquid of the recipe in question. Also, brining meat in milk at room temp seemed a bit dicey. I like the taste of chicken and I bet you get it 'frash" where you are. :hi:

[hippywife]

10. I did post a pic of it.

Most expensive chicken I ever bought but it was really "frash" and we got three meals out of it so it was well worth the cost to have a natural pasture raised chicken. Mmmmm Mmmmm Mmmmm! :drool:

I'm hoping to get another on this month!

[yellerpup]

11. That's what I'm talkin' about!

That's some real food. :9

[Warpy]

15. It's a variation on a southern milk soak

and looks like a definite improvement of it. As messy as it seems, I would imagine it produces an amazingly flavorful fried chicken.

I've done a variation using onion powder instead of the garlic and it's been successful. Either would be excellent.

Another one I've done is made a basic fritter batter, seasoned it and rolled chicken or fish in it before deep frying. That one was great, too, especially when I did onion rings to go with the whole business.

[hippywife]

16. I'm not talking ingredients

as much as the amounts for one little chicken.

[Warpy]

17. The author must be brining the chicken in a shallow pan

and need that quantity of buttermilk to cover it completely. It seems as though if you used a deep container you'd be able to get by with cut back quantities of everything.

I'd also brine the chicken overnight rather than just 2 hours. Chicken is notoriously hard to season. Most southern milk soaks are an overnight deal.

It's also wasteful to throw out those giblets. Cook 'em with the neck and back and you've got broth to put in a pepper gravy for that fried chicken. Or feed them to the cat/dog. Or freeze them for your next roast chicken or turkey gravy.

[hippywife]

18. But

1 1/2 c. of salt and 4 cups of flour? That's an awful lot of salt and a ton of flour, don't you think? I can make two pizza crusts or a loaf and a half of bread with that much flour.

[Warpy]

19. That's for a 7 cup brining solution, so nope,

because you're going to discard it after the chicken marinates in it. Chicken is really hard to season and won't absorb that much salt. I'd probably cut it down, but that's only because I'm on a low salt diet and would rely more on the sugar to do the brining process.

The huge amount of flour is because the chicken is double dunked in it. You go through it faster than you think you will.

[wakemeupwhenitsover]

23. It's 1 1/2 cups of kosher salt or 1/2 cup of regular salt though.