Fried chicken. It’s pretty much the quintessential picnic food, right?
Oliver, my lanky son has been at camp for the month of July on Lake Baptiste so when Martin and I went to visit him Sunday before last, I wanted to bring a yummy, calorie dense picnic. On the menu: fried chicken, fresh rolls with butter, a green salad, a big bowl of Ontario cherries and chocolate cupcakes with dulce de leche & mascarpone frosting. A perfect meal for a boy with a big appetite!
Although I’ve made fried chicken before, it was so many years ago that I felt like I needed to do a bit of research before I started to make it for such an important meal. So, using tips from Ezra Pound Cake’s excellent post about fried chicken as my starting point, I got busy planning. I also perused the fried chicken notes in the America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook as well. (Do you know this book? It’s a fantastic reference. I highly recommend it as a basic book to have in your collection.)
In the end, I brined my chicken in a buttermilk and Frank’s Red-hot sauce mixture for an hour. Then, I set my hood fan onto high and heated an electric wok filled with oil. I find the electric wok is perfect for frying food like chicken since it’s easy to control the temperature, deeper than a conventional electric frying pan and much easier to clean than a deep fryer.
The result? Perfectly crisp fried chicken that was delicious eaten both hot and cold. Oliver loved it so I’ll definitely be making it again soon even if we don’t have another picnic planned.
What do you like to pack in your picnic basket?
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That fried chicken looks extremely crunchy and scrumptious!
Cheers,
Rosa
I want to picnic with you! I love everything on that menu.
Our picnic basket usually contains a wide variety of choices since we tend to picnic as an extended family and have — how to put this politely? — a wide range of culinary likes and dislikes.
Typical picnic: Cold roast chicken, a green salad, devilled eggs, cheese and crackers, cold deli meats, potato salad, sliced veggies, watermelon wedges or seasonal fruit and some eat-with-your-hands dessert like cookies, squares or cupcakes.
Oh, deviled eggs! Yummy.
And, you can picnic with us anytime!
I love the looks of the chicken! Yummy.
We ususally do buns with sandwich fixings. Whatever is good at the Farmers Market like fresh carrots, cherry tomatoes, pea pods. Maybe pickles. Maybe a sturdy salad like potatoe or pasta. Cookies or squares probably. I’d like to have one today!
Oh my! I haven’t been tempted by fried chicken in years, but yours looks so good it makes me think I should make some soon!
We like to pack fresh bread, cheeses, fresh fruit, and if our son will be with us some summer sausage and some kind of brownie or cookie for dessert. A bottle of wine, and some ice cold lemonade for the kids.
If I spend a month on Lake Baptiste will you bring me fried chicken, too?
Absolutely!
Yum, pass the chicken please! 🙂
We like to pack some apple wine from Ocala Winery, nice and tart and good for picnics.
I am a big fan of bringing quiche.
Really easy (I usually cheat and use a frozen pie shell and just fill it with whatever I have in the house (or whatever is fresh from the herb garden).
Donna – smart!
[…] When’s the last time you had fried chicken? Did you make it at home or have some of the Colonel’s special recipe? Or, did you make it at home like I did? […]
Hooooo…. Nice a part of chicken bodies..
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