Southern Fried Chicken
Tips for Great Fried Chicken
Learning how to cut up a whole chicken is a useful skill to have and, if you want to make the very best southern fried chicken recipes, there are other tips and tricks you can learn along the way. If you are preparing chicken wings, you should cut the tips off at the last joint. Your butcher might have already done this. Nobody eats the wing tips and if you trim them off you can fit more chicken wings in your skillet at once. Use at least a twelve inch skillet, by the way, because chicken fries better and more evenly if it is not crowded. A heavy skillet is the best one to use and, if you have a cast iron skillet, this is the best of all. You can make great southern fried chicken in a stainless steel skillet too but cooking in cast iron is especially good.
When you apply the flour to your chicken, there are two ways you can do it. Put the spices and flour in a shallow dish and roll the chicken pieces in the mixture or put them in a paper bag, add the chicken and shake it. Using a shallow dish means you can see what you are doing but using a paper bag cuts down on mess. Boneless, skinless chicken cooks faster than bone-in chicken in its skin, but good fried chicken recipes will tell you roughly how long the chicken needs to cook for.
Oil, Butter or Shortening - Which to Use
You can fry chicken in oil, butter or shortening but you will find that chicken cooked in Crisco or another kind of melted shortening has a superior texture than if you use plain cooking oil. Butter is good for pan frying or oven frying but obviously you will need oil or shortening to deep fry.
Have the shortening between half an inch and three quarters of an inch deep. If your skillet is about twelve inches in diameter you will need about a cup and a half of Crisco. You need to ensure the shortening is hot but not smoking when you add the chicken. If it is not hot enough, wait, else your chicken will become soggy! The ideal temperature for shortening is between 355 and 360 degrees F. You can use an instant-read thermometer to test it.
How to Cut Up a Whole Chicken - A Step-By-Step Guide
The Basic to Cutting Up a Chicken
If you want to prepare a frying chicken, there are a few things that you need to know before you begin.
- You must always use your sharpest knife. You might think that sharp knives are more dangerous than blunt ones but the opposite is true. Most knife accidents are caused by dull knives being forced through meat.
- Pick a good chicken. A bit of yellow under the skin is chicken fat and a lot of people believe this means the chicken is a good one and ready to be made into southern fried chicken or another fried chicken dish. If you want to remove the fat, it does come out easily.
- You will need a clear area to cut up your chicken, including a cutting board if you have one. Fill the sink with hot and soapy water for cleaning up afterwards, when your deep fried chicken recipe is cooking. It helps if you can put the cutting board where the dish drainer is or as close to the sink as possible.
- Be careful with raw chicken juice. Handling raw chicken incorrectly can cause illness so try not to spatter it around the kitchen and if any does get spilt, clean it up well.
Directions on How to Cut Up a Whole Chicken
These four tips are very important if you want to cut up a chicken properly and easily before making your fried chicken recipe.
Chickens bought from stores usually come in plastic bags. A lot of the chickens for sale in the Unites States are from major factories and this is how they package them. When you get your chicken home, put the bird in the clean, dry side of the sink without opening the plastic. If you have a single sink which is full of hot, soapy water, put the chicken on the cutting board.
When you open the plastic wrapping, some bloody juice will probably come out. Just wash these juices down the sink. Check the chicken all over, removing any feathers or noticeable dirt. Check for lumps of fat, giblets, or skin that is tucked into the cavity. Remove all of these before starting to cut the chicken up.
There are different ways to cut up a chicken but we are going to do it the easiest and fastest way, starting with the legs. Take a leg in your hand and feel along it until you find the joint between the thighbone and leg. This feels like an indentation in the bone. Cut at the joint and the leg cuts apart with ease.
After that, follow the thigh up the back. You will come to another indented joint. Cut through it to separate the thigh from the back. Turn the chicken over when you have done that.
Take a wing in your hand. Chicken wings have three joints but people do not usually eat the end joint so you can take it off to use for making broth or leave it for people to use as a handle for eating the chicken wing.
Feel up the joints until you find the last one near the chicken breast. Cut at the joint or cut some extra meat from the breast to get an extra "oyster" of chicken meat for your wing. Wings do not have much meat, so including this part makes them a bit more filling.
How to Cut Up a Chicken - Nothing but the Body Left
You will only have the chicken body left to prepare. Insert the knife through the chicken body from side to side. There will already be a hole in the chicken body and if you cannot see it, a thin layer of skin will be covering it. Cut up and down to separate the breast from the back. You can cut until you come to the breastbone. Take one part of chicken in one hand, the other part in the other hand and pull both pieces apart.
You can use the chicken back for stews or soups. It tastes good but does not have much meat on. You can break the back of the chicken in half to store it. It freezes well if you do not want to use it immediately.
Now you are left with the chicken front. You can de-bone this and cut it into several pieces if you want. Run your finger along the bone until you come to an indentation, like you did before. Cut down the bird, then upwards. You will get the wishbone.
Next, split the rest of the breast or cut it into fourths if you want. You can peel it apart for use in stir-fries, soups, or something else.
That is all there is to it - you should now have a cut up chicken. Clean up any area that the raw chicken might have touched, using the hot, soapy water. Refrigerate or freeze the chicken unless you are going to use it right away. Do not feed raw chicken fat or chicken bones to pets because it really is not good for them.
Now you have your chicken cut up, it is time to make your Kentucky Fried Chicken recipe or Southern Fried Chicken recipe and perhaps a delicious fried chicken batter recipe. Cutting up a chicken is something that takes mere minutes and gets quicker and easier each time you do it.