Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Cooking Fried Chicken for Novice Cooks

By KC Kudra

Fried chicken, also known as southern fried chicken, is a very popular food. There are many different recipes for fried chicken and you can cook it in various ways too. Deep frying is a common way to make fried chicken but you can also shallow fry it or even oven fry it, which is baking the chicken so it tastes like fried chicken but without the extra calories.

Fried Chicken Tips for Beginners

Do not worry if you have never made fried chicken before. There is a first time for everybody and frying chicken is not difficult. You have to be careful when handling raw chicken. Using hot soapy water to wash everything the raw chicken has come into contact with is important. In order to make a fried chicken recipe, you need to dip your chicken into a batter and fry it until it is golden brown on the outside and cooked all the way through.

One of the easiest ways to coat the chicken pieces is to put the dry ingredients into a Ziploc bag and shake the chicken pieces in this mixture, a few at a time. Then you can dip them into batter and fry them. This method also prevents mess!

If you dredge your chicken in flour, then into an egg yolk and milk mixture before dipping it into breadcrumbs, your chicken will come out really crispy and crunchy.

Be very careful with hot oil and never leave it unattended. Never have your face too near to the oil because it can spatter. Use tongs to remove the chicken from the hot oil.

Not all chicken pieces cook at the same rate so if you are using legs, wings, thighs and breasts, you will need to add different pieces at different times. The legs and thighs need to go in first and these cook at 165 degrees F. Next, turn the heat down to 160 degrees F., and add the breasts. Finally, add the wings because these cook more quickly than the other parts.

If the chicken is ready before anything else, do not worry. Put some water in an oven dish and add some rolled up foil balls. Spread a large piece of tin foil over the top, put the chicken on this piece, and cover everything with a lid. Keep this in a 175 degrees F oven until the remainder of the meal is cooked. The foil works like a steamer and keeps your chicken tender and moist until it is needed.

Serving Fried Chicken

There are lots of different side dishes that go well with a deep fried chicken recipe including French fries and corn on the cob or mashed potatoes with green beans.

If you are making food for a party, fried chicken is a great recipe to make. Leave out some catsup and mayonnaise too so people have something to dip their fried chicken into. It can be tricking knowing how much food for a party is the correct amount but with fried chicken, you can be generous because any leftovers are nice cold the next day. - 14915

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