INGREDIENTS

INSTRUCTIONS

Wash and pat dry cut-up chicken parts. Season heavily with salt and pepper
and soak in buttermilk for 30 minutes or more. Lift out the chicken from
the buttermilk, drain well, and shake in a sack of seasoned flour. Melt
butter with oil in a large heavy skillet or shallow baking pan. Dip each
piece of chicken in the oil and butter mixture and bake skin side down at
400 degrees for 30 minutes. Turn the pieces skin side up and bake for 30
minutes longer. Use pan drippings for gravy (see below), if serving with
rice or potatoes.
Gravy: Remove the chicken from the skillet to drain on a plate lined with
paper towels. Pour off excess fat and oil from the pan, leaving 2T. Add 2
T. flour to the pan, stirring to scrape up all the browned bits. Chop up
the liver of the chiden and add with the flour, if desired, to make a
giblet gravy. Add 2 c. of chicken broth (fresh or canned). Stir and boil to
thicken.
NOTES: I started "frying" chicken this way because it is so much easier and
cleaner than frying it on top of the stove. Besides, I never learned how to
fry chicken like my husbands grandmother, who was the undisputed authority
on fried chicken in his family. Unfortunately, she died before I had a
chance to meet her. I justified my ignorance by rationalizing that I didn't
fry food.
I prefer to use only legs, thighs and perhaps wings to oven-fry, saving the
breasts to bone out and cook at another meal. The back, neck, wingtips, and
breast bones I use to make a broth for soup or gravy (Cover the bones with
water and add celery tops, onion, and carrot. Season with salt, pepper, and
thyme, and simmer for an hour or so).
When my daughters got big enough to want more than just one piece of
chicken, or more than just a "baby drumstick" (the larger section of the
wing), I began to buy "three-legged chickens" with an extra leg portion
packed. We told our younger daughter (then about eight years old) it was a
"three legged chicken," and she got all excited, until we explained to her
what the term meant. She was very disappointed.
Posted to EAT-L Digest  by Jo McGinnis <jmcgin@AZSTARNET.COM> on Dec 20,
1997

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