Chicken-fried Takes

I wonder how many Americans have ever had old-fashioned pan-fried chicken? When called upon to fry something, most restaurants these days deep-fry. Occasionally some of the more ambitious diners will pan-fry a chicken-fried-steak, but dropping breaded items into a deep-fryer is just so much easier and faster.

But not better. Here’s my take on pan-fried chicken, from one of my “crookbooks.” It’s the intro of a finished but unnamed novel, about a stripper who works at a soup kitchen for the homeless:

Menu: Fried chicken, mashed potatoes, cream gravy, corn, green beans, rolls, blueberry donuts (instead of the usual cobbler, because of the goddamn groundbreaking at the church). Important note on chicken, so pay attention here Sunny: commercially-raised chickens don’t have the flavor that farm-raised chickens do (called “free-range” or “organic” thanks to the hippies, most likely). Around here, Freeman’s has the best because it’s kosher. Don’t order chicken from anywhere else. Bob will drop an order by if you give him a two-day head’s up. Associated Food will deliver on half-day notice, but their chicken is saline-injected crap. It looks like it’s on steroids, all plumped up, the same as supermarket chicken. And it’s got so many additives and hormones and it’s been cross-bred so much it tastes like a kitchen sponge, but no one complains because they don’t know the difference. Most people have either never had home-grown, normal-sized, bug-and-grass-eating chicken, or they’re just too damn old and their taste buds are shot. So, back to my point: good chicken comes first. Not the egg. Ha.

Sunny stopped reading and smiled, looking up from the journal to glance across the room at the author. Chuck, unlit Stogie dangling from the left side of her mouth, was busy whisking roux into a giant pot of something―probably cream gravy, since this was Thursday―from which rose a mighty billowing cloud of steam. Sunny found it hard to believe that the gruff, baseball-capped sixty-three-year-old could find the time to record such detailed notes about her cooking. Chuck―Charlotte, to those who didn’t know her―was a perfectionist and a workaholic. Her sailor-esque yet oddly eloquent journal notes, uncharacteristically feminine in an elegant script, had been written at Sunny’s request, and she was grateful. She flipped through the notebook surveying the contents. In two months’ time, Chuck had almost filled the thick spiral with her flowing handwriting.

Sunny continued:

A really good piece of fried chicken should be crunchy, a little salty, slightly greasy, juicy but done in the middle, and―chicken-y. It is, after all, frickin’ fried chicken. This is where pan-frying comes in, Sunny. As tempting as it is to make picture-perfect golden-all-over chicken in the deep fryer, don’t do it! Resist the urge and use the cast iron skillets instead. (It’s a lot harder, I know. Jesus they’re heavy!) The end result is not as pretty. There will be dark places on the chicken pieces where they sit on the bottom of the pan too close to the fire. But the difference in taste is unbelievable. Better than the Colonel’s, as many a homeless misfit has told me. With pan-frying, the chicken cooks in a lot less oil, so the fat and juices from the chicken–where a lot of the flavor is―blend with the oil and are re-absorbed by the chicken, intensifying the flavor. When you deep-fry, those flavors seep out and get lost in the big vat of oil.

Excelsior.