Fried Chicken and Gravy - Page 101

This recipe is quite a production!  Overnight brining, buttermilk marinade, breading, then frying.  Oh, and by the way, you have to render fat from the skins and combine it with lard for frying.  But wait, you also have to flavor the oil by cooking bacon in it and then straining it.  Super simple!  I'm really hoping this is going to be awesome.

The good news is that Ox is doing all the prep and most of the cooking, so there's not too much for me to screw up...except the pictures.  Forgot my good camera and my phone only sees in tones of yellow.  At least it's not an iPhone (just had to have that spelling explained to me - I hate them even more.)  Here's a lovely picture of the chicken marinating - yum :(  At least the real thing looks good.

Ox is very happy that he got to use his new fry thermometer that his sister-in-law got him for Christmas.  It very handily told us how hot the oil that was pouring out of the pan and on to the burner was - 320F for the record.  No fire occured, by some miracle.

The major dilemma was that the pan couldn't do the whole batch at once, and you add butter for the last couple minutes.  We'll have to see what batch two looks like in the buttered oil.  The first batch was frickin' beautiful.  Perfectly golden brown with the lovely dark spots from contact with the skillet.

The gravy recipe was simple and easy.  We liked the idea of the soy sauce.  After tasting though, the chicken totally didn't need it.  The flavor of the sweet tea brine really came through in the incredibly tender chicken.  So Much Juice!

Wild Ramp and Crab Stuffed Hushpuppies with Green Goddess Dressing - Page 78

Ox decided to violate the recipe guidelines and fry this in the same fat from the Fried Chicken recipe.  I feel that this is cheating and urged him to have two separate pots of red hot fat on his stove and to stop being a wuss.  He was petulantly unwilling to see the light of reason.  I relented when he pointed out that it was his house, his food and that he was cooking, so if I wanted to eat...I mean, I'm not a martyr.

Ox made home-made mayonnaise for the Green Goddess dressing, using an Alton Brown recipe.  He said it was easy.

Holy crap!  The first hushpuppie literally flipped itself in the fryer!  It was like magic.  Maybe the rest will do it too...spell check doesn't like hushpuppy.  Thinks it should be pushpin.  Okay, the hushpuppies not only flip themselves when they're ready but they form themselves into perfectly round balls.  Sean Brock Magic!

This was the perfect day to make these.  Sports radio keeps talking about balls - tacky balls, old balls, soft balls (Deflategate).  Now I get to talk about puppy balls.

These were amazingly delicious.  The four minute kicker in the oven resulted in light fluffy insides with crispy, golden exteriors.  Lovely with the Green Goddess Dressing.