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I was on the phone with friend A-chan (yes! phone calls!) and describing my dinner in process; she was surprised that I said pan-fried chicken took 35 minutes. That's what I learned from my parents and what usually works well, resulting in cooked but juicy chicken. Sometimes I go longer if the drumsticks (I only do drumsticks) are extra thick. Not that I've experimented much.
I wondered, so looked up fried chicken recipes, and think I see the difference. Most of them talk about filling the pan 1/3 inch to 1 inch deep in oil. So yeah, they might say as little as 15 minutes, or maybe 10 a side, but I imagine it's like deep frying your chicken by parts.
Whereas the oil my family uses is a "don't stick" amount. Probably a couple millimeters at most, if that. So the cooking is partially a dry heat process, pan to chicken. (In fact sometimes my father would brown/sear battered chicken in skillets in batches, then pile them all up in a Dutch oven to finish via baking. I've done that with regular ovens, maybe more often if I'm doing a lot to free friends, but mostly I just do a skillet or sometimes two.)
A side effect of doing that is ending up with a pan rich in seasoned chicken fat, not much diluted by the cooking oil I started with. In my old egg and batter days, I would mix left over seasoned flour with leftover egg, and fry the most amazingly flavorful hockey puck of dough in the pan. These days I just mop up the skillet with bread.
I think I have a strong aversion to filling a pan with oil. Like it seems wasteful of oil or dangerous or messy, or all three. Not really an issue most of the time, but might be why I have trouble cooking corn tortillas; I don't remember my father's process well, and after various failed attempts I suspect it involved pouring more oil than usual, which goes against my "don't stick" habits.
Anyway. These Canadian drumsticks were smaller than is common in the US, so maybe they didn't need 35 minutes. Came out tasty and juicy anyway.
I wondered, so looked up fried chicken recipes, and think I see the difference. Most of them talk about filling the pan 1/3 inch to 1 inch deep in oil. So yeah, they might say as little as 15 minutes, or maybe 10 a side, but I imagine it's like deep frying your chicken by parts.
Whereas the oil my family uses is a "don't stick" amount. Probably a couple millimeters at most, if that. So the cooking is partially a dry heat process, pan to chicken. (In fact sometimes my father would brown/sear battered chicken in skillets in batches, then pile them all up in a Dutch oven to finish via baking. I've done that with regular ovens, maybe more often if I'm doing a lot to free friends, but mostly I just do a skillet or sometimes two.)
A side effect of doing that is ending up with a pan rich in seasoned chicken fat, not much diluted by the cooking oil I started with. In my old egg and batter days, I would mix left over seasoned flour with leftover egg, and fry the most amazingly flavorful hockey puck of dough in the pan. These days I just mop up the skillet with bread.
I think I have a strong aversion to filling a pan with oil. Like it seems wasteful of oil or dangerous or messy, or all three. Not really an issue most of the time, but might be why I have trouble cooking corn tortillas; I don't remember my father's process well, and after various failed attempts I suspect it involved pouring more oil than usual, which goes against my "don't stick" habits.
Anyway. These Canadian drumsticks were smaller than is common in the US, so maybe they didn't need 35 minutes. Came out tasty and juicy anyway.
no subject
Date: 2021-08-24 07:29 (UTC)From:(well I guess you say drumsticks, but mostly yeah that just sounds like a piece of meat wholly unsuited for being fried; I'd roast or braise them, or more realistically I just don't eat them much)
Large amounts of oil are unpleasant because they're dangerous fire-wise, personally, but also I took a leaf out of a Chinese chef's cookbook and keep the oil you use in a container by my stove to cook everything else in for the next month. I don't deep-fry much, so this works out fine for me.
How do you season chicken when cooking it like this? What kind of pan do you use?
no subject
Date: 2021-08-24 14:08 (UTC)From:Possibly the process is partially an open (or semi-open, with partial lid) roast as much as frying.
My version of my father's process was to mix flour, (salt?), garlic powder, cayenne, black pepper, rosemary powder, any other powdered herbs or spices you might want. Coat the chicken pieces in egg. My father would put the powder and chicken in a big brown paper bag and shake vigorously; more often I would just manually coat the chicken in the powder bowl.
I tried actually measuring spice proportions once when G asked for a recipe, but I've forgotten. Usually I just do it by eye.
At some point I was lazy, or reluctant to keep flour around, and tried just sprinkling seasonings on the pan (before chicken) and on top of the chicken (in pan). No flour, no egg, otherwise same ingredients. This works surprisingly well.
Either way, using only a small amount of starting oil leads to a lot of heavenly flavored chicken fat at the end.
no subject
Date: 2021-08-25 23:32 (UTC)From:It really does seem like a waste, so I've gotten some lye and I'm going to try making a test batch of soap to see if it's any good for that.