Southern Fried Chicken

Djavid suggested cooking this after filling up on the Meatball Curry earlier in the week. None of us had ever had home-made fried chicken, and I rarely eat it at all. I've never deep fried anything before (that I can remember), and memories of bad fried chicken definitely put me off the idea, but Djavid had laid down the gauntlet, and as he's got a proper gas hob and more space, I agreed to do it as long as I could do it at his house. I just brought the ingredients and prepared everything, although he did the majority of the cleaning afterwards, which was definitely a bonus.

I got some ideas from a few recipes on the web, and created my own slight variation. Flour, Lawry's, Paprika, Cayenne, Black Pepper, mixed. A few eggs with some milk and a tablespoon or two of Encona Hot Pepper Sauce, beaten. Clean the chicken pieces, dry them, then cover with seasoned flour, then dip into egg mixture, then back into the seasoned flour, and deep fry in hot groundnut oil until golden brown and the chicken is cooked, turning once or twice during cooking. The first batch were a little bland on the spices, but we added more on each subsequent batch until we had it just right. If there is a next time though, I think we might experiment with other spice combinations.

I have to say, it tasted pretty good. Once properly drained on kitchen towel the chicken pieces weren't really greasy and the chicken on the inside was nice and moist without any oil at all. Djavid and Gab managed to eat 7 pieces each which seems slightly excessive. Personally, I think I had about 3 pieces, which I think is probably sufficient for most people, depending on the size of the chicken pieces.

Then we experimented with South Fried Apple Fritter, which would have been OK if it wasn't for the salt I reckon. Definitely not advisable. But doing another flour mixture with cinnamon and a plain egg and milk mixture made Apple fritters which tasted almost like miniture Apple Pies. A lot of deep fried food, but we did have some corn and salad with it, and it seemed right to get the most from all the groundnut oil we used.

New requirements came out of the evening, so going to have to spend another day or so before getting them reviewed.