<p>Galoisien, when you make soup, you put everything you have in. For most recipes, you want to get a more refined taste. Do you want everything to taste like ranch dressing?</p>
<p>As for KFC, when you add in the cost of oil, it’s close. Granted you may not get as much food, but you can get enough drumsticks for a good meal for two with leftovers for about $7.</p>
<p>shallow pan fry: use velco to hold the breading. Better off to bake in oven.</p>
<p>put newspaper on floor to catch the oil splatter. wear eye protection.</p>
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<p>I think the ratio (in volume) of dressing to solution in there is like 1:15. ;)</p>
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<p>Wear fire suit.</p>
<p>I’m a veteran of a heck of a lot of cooking classes, but the most important thing most have imparted is that when cooking, less is often more. It’s very easy to muddy the flavors.</p>
<p>Off-topic but …</p>
<p>Dh puts Tony Chachere’s on everything – Mexican, Italian, sardines. Ticks me off.</p>
<p>I guess the ranch dressing jones made me think of that.</p>
<p>brine the chicken- most important-
but I admit KFC isn’t that bad- not as good as Ezells- but at least with mine I know it is " organic" 
( that reminds me- my daughter wants to go eat chicken and waffles before she goes on her trip)</p>
<p>I grew up going to weekly covered dish dinners at church and had a lot of fried chicken but my mom makes the best fried chicken I’ve ever tasted. Get ready - she skins it before cooking it - sounds blasphemous I know but you can still get a good batter on it without the skin and it is healthier. </p>
<p>She puts it in salty ice water - with ice cubes - and refrigerates it over night. Then she dips in milk and rolls in flour - seasoned only with salt and pepper. Soaking it in salt water gets the flavoring all the way through the meat rather than just in the batter. She uses less oil than most but the key is the temperature and not turning it often. If it’s too hot, it will brown too much before cooking through and if it’s not hot enough, you will lose the batter. </p>
<p>KFC - I don’t even consider that real Southern fried chicken - it either has too much batter or is gooey. Not a fan.</p>
<p>catera, the KFC by my house- is pretty good- I believe that they are hispanic people who own it, but the key to good fried food ( if there is such a thing) is to have the oil hot enough and not to overcrowd.</p>
<p>If you are going to dip the chicken in something- don’t forget to air dry it first.
I also prefer rubs- like tom douglas’s , instead of batters or dips ( but I don’t make fried chicken either- I will grill it- but if I want fried chicken- I do like Oprah do- I go to Ezells- it’s a little closer for me )</p>
<p>brining meat, doesn’t just flavor it, but it retains more moisture.</p>
<p>jmmom has the classic southern fried chicken recipe. I was all set to post the one I learned as a child from an old southern cook (my mother hated to cook and so she hired one–she used to say she worked so she could afford to hire people to cook and clean for her, but after she died I discovered she made more money than my father many years), but anyway, jmmom is dead on. Lots of salt and pepper in the flour, the chicken needs to be room temperature (which is one of the things soaking in milk for an hour does) or else it browns too much before it’s cooked through, and it really helps to use a thermometer or an electric frying pan with a thermostat, which is what we used to do, so we could cook it outside, where the grease didn’t matter!</p>
<p>(And that may be the longest runon sentence I’ve ever written.)</p>
<p>I use Jmmom’s recipe with these following differences -
<p>jmmom as the recipe nailed in #5. That’s how my grandmother fried chicken in her restaurant. Covering the chicken while the first side cooks is the key.</p>
<p>However, and this is a big however. I am a very experienced cook and I would have to say that mastering southern fried chicken was the hardest recipe I’ve ever undertaken. There is so much nuance and skill hidden in that recipe. Specifically, the concepts of heat and time in frying chicken apply only to YOUR skillet on YOUR stove. The real challenge is finding the heat setting that gets the chicken perfectly brown and done at the same time without burning. Much trial and error. You just have to accept that the first five times you make it will be a hot mess.</p>
<p>Batter fried chicken is a different thing entirely. Realistically, that is going to work best in deep fryer. It is very difficult to pan fry a batter without the batter coming off on the pan. Very difficult to get the chicken done at the same time as the batter. </p>
<p>Forget “fusion” fried chicken. I’ve tried them all. Some of the big name fusion cooks (like Ming Tsai on PBS) don’t have the first clue how to fry a piece of chicken. If you want to kick it up a notch, add some cayenne pepper to the salt and pepper on the chicken and in the flour. Cajun style southern fried chicken.</p>
<p>If you want to experiment, the Chinese have an interesting (and delicious) approach. Soak pieces of chicken in a mixture of egg white and corn starch. This produces a lacy coating. It only works for small bite-size pieces of chicken. It’s the starting point for a good General Tsao’s chicken.</p>
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Well, imo it would be detrimental. If what you want is Southern Fried Chicken, then leave the ingredients at Southern Fried Chicken - not Italian Fried Chicken or Latino Fried Chicken or Asian Fried Chicken or some mezcla of four different cuisines.</p>
<p>Less is more.</p>
<p>If you do want to create different tastes, pick your “poison.” Cilantro and basil are both very distinctive - combined in the same chicken recipe, they will compete with - not complement - each other.</p>
<p>I don’t deep fry anything at home because I hate the mess. I do make my Florida sister-in-laws oven fried chicken from time to time though. It’s very easy and the clean up is simple because you line the cookie sheets with tinfoil.</p>
<p>15 pieces (could probably be more if it was all legs)</p>
<p>1 1/2 cup Bisquick
1/3 cup parmesan
2 tsp oregano
2 tsp rosemary
2 tsp black pepper
1 Tb paprika
salt to taste</p>
<p>put above ingredients in a paper bag</p>
<p>2 eggs
1/2 cup water</p>
<p>put above ingredients in a shallow bowl</p>
<p>butter (generously) 2 cookie sheets or large baking pans lined with foil
dip chicken in egg mixture than shake in paper bag
place chick skin side down on foil
cook 1/2 hour at 400 degrees basting once
turn over and cook another 1/2 hour at 350 degrees.</p>
<p>I don’t know jmmom, cilantro and basil combined are pretty common in Thai cooking. It’s just going in a different direction.</p>
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<p>Thai Basil is a completely different plant. It doesn’t even look like basil. Tastes completely different. Thai Basil has an almost licorice flavor.</p>
<p>I think regular basil has sort of licorice flavor too, but you are right, I’ve grown both and they aren’t the same. :)</p>
<p>I agree, mathmom. I got a little carried away :). He could put them together if he wants. BTW, I think your oven fried chicken sounds pretty good. I’m going to try it. But I won’t call it Southern Fried Chicken ;).</p>
<p>My mom made her fried chicken in a cast iron skillet for years but she prefers an electric skillet now. She feels she can fine tune the heat better, but she’s never cooked on a gas stove and I would think that would be best.</p>
<p>Ezell’s Fried Chicken outlets in the Seattle area are highly overrated, as anyone with a southern heritage knows.</p>
<p>My mother’s fried chicken is unsurpassed. She never used the buttermilk soaking method, but I’ve used buttermilk, with good results.</p>