winner, winner, southern fried chicken dinner!

howdy hungry readers, how ya'll doin'? 

for this edition of culinary meandering, i'm venturing down yonder to the deep south to satisfy my hankerin' for some classic comfort food, just like memaw used to make. so grab yer sweet tea, your coon dog and your wife/cousin and let's git cookin'! 

if you've had the pleasure of spending extensive amounts of time with me, you know that an unhealthy majority of my free time is dedicated to the food network. as such, i have come to know each of the tv chefs by name and often refer to them as if they were my own friends. (i'm not crazy, my mother had me tested)

one of my most favoured food network bffls is paula deen. if you've never seen her show, here's how it goes:

 "hey ya'll, we're gonna make [something southern and filled with butter] today... *cooks* *eats her creations in a way that is uncomfortably passionate* sendin' you love and best dishes from my kitchen to yerrrrrs."  

i caught an episode of her making fried chicken a few weeks ago and since then i've been craving it like a hormonal pregnant woman. in the words of my friends elvis presley and willie nelson, "[fried chicken] you were always on my miiiiiiiiiiind." *cut to me singing this alone in the dark, clutching a picture of a drumstick*

anyways, after seeing the infamous ms. deen make fried chicken and being the culinary meanderererererer that i am, i had to make it myself. in retrospect, a trip to KFC would have been easier and i am a complete fool. but alas, where would the blog be without such foolish decisions. 

so here's the menu i put together for my southern feast: 

fried chicken, baked beans, wisdom teeth mashed potatoes (don't freak out, i'll explain later), and cawwwnbread.  

first thang's first, ya'll. grab your ukulele or your ipod and blast some country music. i highly suggest john denver's "country road" or, of course, zac brown band's "chicken fried" - in fact, play that on repeat while you read this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4ujS1er1r0&ob=av3e

let's start with the cawwwnbread. 

so this was my first attempt at cornbread and after the perfection that is the cornbread at montana's, i was quite unsure of myself. as i've said before, attempting to duplicate perfection is often a one-way ticket to disappointment. on a 57 degree bus. sitting between two fat guys. with no leg room. 

nevertheless, i proceeded. first thing i did was soak 1 1/2 cups of cornmeal in 2 1/2 cups of buttermilk and let it sit for 10 minutes. 

side-note: buttermilk is the most horrendous smelling substance on the face of this earth, so if you make this, fight the urge to throw this mixture off the nearest cliff - it's worth it in the end. 

next, in a separate bowl, i mixed 2 cups of flour, a tablespoon of baking powder, 1/3 cup of white sugar and 1/3 cup brown sugar. 

after the 10 minutes was up, i combined the two bowls, then added 1/2 cup peanut oil (because that's all i had, okay!) and 2 eggs. then i mixed it all up, poured the batter into a muffin tin and baked them at 350 for 30 minutes. 

this was the result:

beautiful. now, on their own, these cute little beebs would be just fine. but you know me, i can't leave well enough alone when i cook. i decided that i'd brush the tops of my cornbreadlettes with a mixture of honey, butter and salt. so i stuck a tablespoon of the first two and a pinch of the last into a tupperware and zapped it in the microwave. 

DISASTER. i meant to set the clock to 20 seconds, but accidentally set it to 2 minutes. since i was running around like a (fried) chicken with my head cut off trying to multitask, i didn't realize anything was wrong until the timer beeped and i opened the microwave. 

this was the result:

okay, that's not my house. but this is what it smelled like. the butter/honey had burnt, melted the tupperware onto the little revolving glass plate. smoke filled the kitchen and being the brave little soldier that i am, i dove my arm into the microwave, retrieved the revolving glass plate and bolted out the back door. i'm not going to call myself a hero, but if the medal of honor fits.....

after we successfully aired out the kitchen, i tried again and there were much fewer flaming catastrophes. i brushed the cornbread with the mixture and all was right in the world. 

NEXT! the beans. these are super easy.

i started by frying up some bacon strips and diced onions in a pan until the onions were browning. then, i picked the bacon out and chopped it up. at this point a strip or two of bacon went missing. investigations are pending - police have no leads... protect yourself against the pains of bacon theft and always make extra. ALWAYS. 

next, in a pan, i combined two cans of beans in molasses with a 2 tablespoons of mustard, worchestershire sauce, some garlic powder and paprika, a splash of coke and 1/4 cup of ketchup and my favourite bbq sauce. 

then i mixed it all together, including the bacon and onions. it looked something like this:

i stuck these in the oven for an hour. as soon as they were in the oven, their heavenly beany aroma filled the kitchen and the roommates came begging. some were even driven to the point of drooling. 

kind of gross, yes. but flattering, nonetheless. 

moving along to the potatoes. the wisdom teeth potatoes to be exact.

please note: this recipe does not include actual wisdom teeth. i only put them in my christmas fruitcake. what?! no one eats that shit! NO ONE. 

okay, so the back story. once upon a last summer, i had my wisdom teeth extracted. this was a very painful experience in more ways than one. firstly, there was the raging pain in my jaw/mouth to deal with. second, eating is nearly impossible after said surgery and this coupled with my love of food made for an emotionally agonizing day. yes, day. day two of my post-surgery life, i had had quite enough of popsicles, so i sprang from my sickbed and ventured to the kitchen to make potatoes. loaded whipped potatoes, the consistency of the clouds upon which cherubs and jesus lay. for the next week, i ate nothing but these potatoes, moved to ireland, and gained 400 pounds. except that i did not move to ireland or gain 400 pounds. anyways, aside from the fact that someone had pulled two teeth from my head, it was a glorious week. perhaps the recipe will show you why...

i start by making classic mashed potatoes - boil 'em, mash 'em, stick some butter and milk in them. then i whip them. usually using a mixer, but last night with my bare hands. bare hands meaning with a whisk, by the work of my own elbow grease. elbow grease meaning.... okay, forget it! i whipped them. all the while adding a little more milk and butter to get it to the right consistency. then, shit gets real. i add chives, shredded cheddar cheese and bacon, like so:

if you are not salivating at this point, pavlov's dog, there is something terribly wrong with you. seek help. anyways, after adding those glorious ingredients, i do another few monster mashes and that's it! 

FINALLY, the chicken. oh sweet, succulent chicken - as selena gomez-bieber says, i love you like a love song. 

i started by venturing to my local grocer and picking up a whole chicken. i then proceeded to the butcher and asked him, as i batted my lashes and flipped my hair, if he would "like, please help me out because i totally have no idea how to like, cut up a chicken" or because whole chickens gross me out and make me think of chicken little and how i'm cutting into his dead body and how i'm basically a chicken murderer and how i am really wimpy. anyways, mr. francois the butcher obliged, life was beautiful and now i can sleep at night. 

side-note: this method of getting what you want is always effective. especially with old men. especially with french old men. especially if you're a woman. 

next, i brought my dehumanized (de-chickenized?) meat home and bathed it in buttermilk. just like they do to wilbur in charlotte's web. except that they loved wilbur and i planned on picking my chicken's bones dry like a vulture. too far?

anywaaaaaaaays...yes, i soaked it in buttermilk: paula deen's favourite kind of milk. lolz.

next, i took each piece of chicken and tossed it in a mixture of flour, garlic powder, paprika, black pepper and a herb blend. what i call my "white people" herb blend.

side-note: i feel that i need to clarify, not for the first time on the blog, that the preceding comment is not racist. you see, i have an italian, a cajun and an indian spice blend sitting in my cupboard. then i have one that's basically rosemary, thyme and other spices you put in english meals. hence, white people herb blend. okay, maybe it's a little racist. but i toss my chicken in it anyway! like so:

then, after shaking them off at bit, i tossed the chicken into a pan 1/3 full of blazing hot peanut oil and fry it. 

i cooked it on each side for about 5-7 minutes. but that just cooked it through, it wasn't crispy yet. to make it crispy, you have to leave it in the oil for a suuuuuper long time and that's all well and good and if you like chicken so greasy you can slick your hair back with it (biz) - i, however, did not wish to die of a heart attack at the age of 20, so i took them out of the oil and stuck them in the oven on a high broil for 10 minutes. much healthier. at least that's what i told myself. 

then, i served it to my four rodeo clowns roommates and one biz sanford. 

the roommate/biz review

biz - "The meal was wonderful, although I had trouble enjoying it because the chef's tiny hands were making me extremely uncomfortable. My favourite part was the corn bread and then the mashed potatoes with cheeeeeese!!! I didn't care much for the beans, but I've never bean (haha) much of a fan :)"

well, bless your heart, elizabeth. your sweet words could charm the morning dew off the honeysuckle. (anyone who gets that reference without googling is my soul mate or my grandmother)

owing to their busy celebrity schedules, the roommates were unavailable for comment. instead, i'll let their pictures speak for them, since they are worth a thousand words.

clearly, from this crazed look we can conclude that any interruption of allannah's eating is quite hazardous. 

julie seems to be adopting a smeagol-esque protection over her food. i base this on her expression in the picture and the fact that throughout the meal she whispered "my precious" to her plate. 

jasmine has never been happier in her life. clearly i did something right. also, she got a cute new haircut for the occasion, so saying she was looking forward to the meal is quite an understatement. 

i am going to interpret chelsea's model-like pose as a representation of the perfection of the food. also, you'll notice how she mixed her beans and potatoes together so as to get as much of the meal into her mouth at once as humanly possible. 

to summarize their viewpoint i will say that second helpings were enjoyed and silence reigned for the first 10 minutes of the meal (always a good sign). overall, the collective opinion was about an 8 on the roommate review scale, although allannah's drooling pushes it closer to a 10. 

http://theresacesareo.blogspot.com/2011/08/roommate-review-scale.html

review de moi:

warning: what follows is the textbook definition of tooting one's own horn. please excuse my big, chicken filled head. TOOT TOOT!

the cornbread was fantastic by itself, but the butter/honey glaze just made it unreal. luckily, the recipe above makes a lot, which was good because it is likely that a shortage may have resulted in a fight to the death between biz and i. and as i always say, cornbread should bring people together, not force them to kill their only college chum. but yes, the cornbread was so awesome that i have stored the left-overs in my room so as not to have to share them. sorry roomies, i love you, but this is cornbread we're talking about. 

the potatoes were just as heavenly as i remembered, but infinitely more so because i was not suffering from earth-shattering jaw pain. whipping them with a mixer would have made them better, but alas, one must work with what one has. and what one has is biceps that are inadequate in every way. 

the beans - ahh, the beans. just spectacular. i love canned beans anyway, but the bacon and onions added so much more flavor to them. that and the addition of all the spices and sauces - so sweet, yet so savoury. good lord, i'm salivating. good thing i rationed them so i could have some today. and yes, this is the great depression.

finally, the chicken: crunchy, yet juicy. classic, yet flavorful. just lovely. the oven part was definitely a good idea, not too greasy. paula deen would have been proud. 

i think it's safe to say that she would have been proud of the whole meal. granted, she might remark that i could have used more butter, but chances are i would have burned down sandy hill in the process. 

so the moral of this story is: when you want fried chicken, make fried chicken - don't settle for fast-food.

and if chicken isn't your thing, then lucky for you, the fine people of the south have invented various chicken-fried recipes: chicken-fried steak, chicken-fried bacon (good lord), and chicken-fried deer steak, chicken-fried alligator, chicken-fried olives, you name it, you can be darn tootin' there's a hillbilly somewhere fryin' it like a chicken. 

meanwhile, i'll stick to my fried chicken because you know, i like my chicken fried, a cold beer on a wednesday night, a pair of uottawa sweatpants that fit just right and the food network turned uuuuup! 

thanks for reading, ya'll :)

p.s. paula deen, if you're reading this - please know the jokes i poke at you are only out of love. but damn woman, do you really need to use so much butter?!

p.p.s. congratulations to my dear saudi arabian friend Stephanie Dubreuil for her correct guess of fried chicken during yesterday's contest! your pony is in the mail. except that it is not in the mail.