Making fried chicken on Sundays, always brings back memories of Sunday dinner in my family when I was a child. In fact I made fried chicken this past Sunday along with potato salad, ripe sliced tomatoes followed by chocolate cake and watermelon. Doesn't get any more Southern that that.
I always brine the chicken, usually salted water, sometimes buttermilk if I have it on hand. I fry it in a small amount of canola oil, put a lid on the skillet just as the NYT recipe recommends. I never discard the back, that's my husband's favorite. One thing I have found it that an electric skillet is perfect for frying chicken. I used to own a Cuisinart electric skillet, it was the best, but it finally wore out. I am now using a Walmart cheapie. You want to have a skillet that is large enough so the chicken is not too crowded, but not so big that the pieces look lonesome in the skillet.
The most important thing for good fried chicken is the size of the chicken. The best fried chicken is made with a small chicken. Don't get those monster 5 or 6 pound chickens sold at the supermarket, -a small ones -2 1/2 to 3 pounds are best. We go to the Hispanic grocery store where they sell two fresh whole chickens in a big bag, the whole bag usually weighs under 6 pounds. I will use one of the chickens to fry and split the other in half long wise to freeze and use for other dishes. There are only the two of us at home now and I like white meat, my husband likes dark meat, so a whole chicken works well for us
When making fried chicken, you want to have some left over - a piece of cold fried chicken, a slice of white bread and a dill pickle - a great snack!
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