Kentucky-Style Fried Chicken

By Addie

"When fast-food restaurants first started, their goal was to serve good, old-fashioned, country-style home-cooking. These days, it's the reverse...home cooks try to reproduce fast-food. A recipe such as this is what Colonel Sanders wanted to mass market as good as home-cooking when he established KFC, but this old timey recipe is *nothing* like take-out food. This is NOT a copycat recipe for Colonel Harland Sanders' world-famous Kentucky Fried Chicken. If you are in the mood for take-out chicken, please pass this recipe on by. From the Southern chapter of the United States Regional Cookbook, Culinary Arts Institute of Chicago, 1947 Lovely served with griddlecakes, waffles, mashed potatoes or hominy grits. Don't forget the cream gravy! Cooking time approximate"

Ingredients

• 1 medium whole chicken, cut into serving pieces
• 1 1/2 cups flour, sifted
• 1 teaspoon salt ( to taste)
• Pepper, to taste
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 eggs
• 1/2 cup milk ( or more as needed for a smooth batter)
• Fat or oil, for frying

Preparation

Step 1

1. Steam or poach chicken until tender (I like to poach it in chicken stock); dry and keep cool until time to fry (it is convenient to do thes the day before if a large quantity is needed).


2. Just before frying, make a batter of the remaining ingredients.


3. Preheat fat or oil to 380°F.


4. Dip each piece of steamed chicken in batter and fry until a beautiful golden brown.
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REVIEWS:

Excellent The whole family loved this recipe, I did need too add extra milk to the recipe other than that everything else i done the same.
Thanks for the recipe it's great.

I would have given it 5 stars, but the milk amount is just too far off. Everyone seems to be having a problem with the amount listed. I know it says "or more as needed for a smooth batter", but I had to at least double it not to end up with the consistency of a heavy muffin batter. Once I adjusted the milk, the results were very good. I have never had luck frying chicken before. Usually my coating is done way before the chicken is cooked through. This recipe solves that problem wonderfully. From that stand point this is the only recipe for fried chicken I will ever make again! The batter reminds me of Weaver brand batter dipped chicken. I also think that you could probably experiment by adding different seasonings to this batter to get Italian style or any other flavor combination you could come up with. I'm also thinking of taking your tip of steam cooking the chicken first, and trying it out leaving the baking powder out, to see how it works with a non batter type recipe. I'll bet it makes a crisp fried chicken that way, and continues to solve my problem of over done coating with underdone chicken. Thanks for sharing Molly, this recipe gives me plenty of ideas to play with. If you change the milk amount like most of the reviewers said, I'd change my rating to 5 stars.

I TOTALLY agree with last review! As I had to add a bit more milk for the batter too! I think if you DON'T expect it to be EXACTLY like KFC, Just "accept" this recipe as it was MEANT to be! I too steam cooked chicken, will make again, I got from DH, "BUT WHEN?" lol Thanks!

Hello Molly; Made this chicken for dinner last night and was delighted with the finished product. The chicken was so tender and juicy and the coating was not heavy, but turned out a beautiful light golden brown. I also steam-cooked the chicken pieces in chicken broth, what a fantastic idea. I did have to add more milk as the batter was somewhat on the thick side. When adjusted, it turned out perfect. Otherwise, I followed the recipe as written. My DW who does not eat any red meat, only chicken breasts, was absolutely delighted with this chicken. She does not like a heavy, thick coating, so this pleased her to no end. Thank you Molly and I will be making this recipe more often as my DW will now demand it. Warmest Regards, "Uncle Bill"

Molly, made this tonight for dinner. I poached the chicken in broth yesterday, cooled it and refrigerated until tonight. I did let it come to room temperature before frying tho! That made it so easy.......just make the batter and fry. I did have a problem with the batter being too stiff, and added almost a cup more milk.(It was much thinner, and fried just perfectly. It doesn't take long at all since the meat is done and the batter fries up crispy and golden in a short time. I think I could have added even more pepper, but will do that next time. We all enjoyed this recipe, and I am anxious to try it cold tomorrow..(love it that way too). Thanks for a new way of fixing perfectly cooked chicken.

How funny is it that I just made this recipe the other day, and knowing the wealth of food knowledge, and outstanding recipes from this recipe author, I knew this had to be a winner. There is something about rafting *fried* chicken coming out of open summer windows and even the valley below can tell something's up and something is um-um - good coming out of "The Longmeadoaw Farm" kitchen this evening. I followed this exactly, and I especially knew the baking powder addition is a must to the recipe. The baking powder makes a bust-a-move when hit with the hot oil, and allows the chicken pieces to swell and burst with flavor. No extra seasoning needed. Perfect, simple, and brought the farm-hands in like ants to the picnic basket. Bravo! Made just because this made the top 25 *Fried Chicken* recipes August 2009

Please, cooks, this is not meant to be take-away KFC!!! Molly, thanks, this was great. Instead of ordinary salt I used a local all-purpose seasoning salt containing ground herbs, dried lime zest and ground coriander seeds. I also used a plump organic chicken and cut it up. Please keep in mind that these days most commercial chickens are tasteless. If you want taste, choose your chicken accordingly. A great recipe -- otherwise you go out to the nearest KFC branch. Molly explained in her intro what this recipe was about, and it's NOT supposed to be the Colonel's chicken! READ

Thanks for the recipe. I am from KY and this is how we fry our chicken all the time. I rarely taste anyone's chicken from this area that actually tastes like KFC, it is much better than KFC. Thank you for posting, now I don't have to.

Ummm, I guess Verna didn't read the description saying this recipe is NOT meant to be a KFC knock-off. I thought it was authentic KENTUCKY and very tasty! Thanks for sharing!

I gave this recipe 3 stars. What a nice crispy coated chicken. This recipe is very simple to make. This was only the second time I made fryed chicken. The first time my chicken was still bloody inside. This time it was cooked perfect not bloody. I loved the idea of poaching the chicken first then you know it's cooked. I still to be safe fryed my chicken on low for 25 minutes. My whole family enjoyed this chicken. My 5 yr old newphew ate this right down. My 6 yr old newphew said the skin was his favorite. My future hubby just ate the chicken and commented on high juicy it was. I did have to add about 1 cup more milk to get a smooth batter. Overall this was so good and I will make it again. The only change I would make is to season my chicken with a bit more spice like paprika. Thanks for posting a really good recipe!

OK, I think maybe this recipe is not right. I made the batter and it was 'way too stiff to do anything with. I thinned it down enough that I could actually get it on the chicken, but I was disappointed in the results. The coating had the texture of pancake batter. Been there, done that, back in the Bisquik days. It was not crispy and didn't look anything like the picture. Each piece of chicken was a blob and you had to guess what piece of chicken you were getting off the platter. I thought maybe the directions were wrong, that the egg, milk and baking powder should be mixed together and used as a preliminary dip, and then follow with dredging the chicken in the flour. The recipe didn't specify whether this was to be fried in a skillet or a deep fryer. Since the temperature of 380 degrees was given, I assumed it was deep fat. That being the case, there are no drippings for making gravy out of, just quite a bit of canola oil that smells like chicken, and what is good old-fashioned fried chicken without gravy? I do like the method of poaching the chicken first, although I refrigerated my poached chicken overnight and it stuck together wherever the pieces touched, from the gelatin that is released by the chicken while it is being poached. I really wanted to like this recipe, but I give it as many as three stars only because of the pre-poaching idea. As for the rest of the recipe, I'll go back to dipping the pre-poached pieces in buttermilk and then rolling in flour with salt and pepper, and cooking in a skillet. I've no idea what the temp of oil in a skillet would be, but OK, when a drop of water in it makes a sizzle.

Very Bland, for the record I do NOT eat any fast food, including KFC. I feel like I wasted a chicken and alot of time. No one in the family liked this one at all.

While this recipe is an adequate fried chicken recipe, it is in NO WAY similar to KFC. There is nothing similar in flavor between plain salt & pepper, like this recipe, and a spice blend with 11 herbs & spices, like KFC!

This must have been in the technique of frying, because I had to tweak this extensively. I substituted the flour for an oven-fry mixture, Added oregano, marjoram, corn starch, paprika, parsley, and dipped into the flour first THEN, the egg, back to flour and fried it till it was mildly brown, placed the pieces on a foiled cookie sheet, sprayed it with water and covered it with a sheet of foil, baked at 350 for about 50 minutes. Hah! Shocked myself. It was like KFC! Yayyyy!

Well, I followed this to the letter and the Colonel must have changed the recipe significantly because this had no flavor whatsoever.