My Aunt's Fried Chicken Recipe

That above is the juiciest, tastiest fried chicken I've ever made. My family likes my old recipe, but this is something special.

My dad makes lifetime friends, and a lot of them I've called Aunt or Uncle all my life. This recipe came from one of those Aunts. My dad had told me about how he was giving her a hard time, and asked her if she knew how to make fried chicken. She replied she could make the best fried chicken he'd ever had thank you very much and proceeded to prove it. He's mentioned that fried chicken at every single restaurant he's had fried chicken at since.

So when we started emailing each other, I asked her for the recipe. She very kindly gave it to me. When I asked if I could blog it, she gave permission. So now you get her wonderful, easy recipe for what TG and I agree is probably the best fried chicken ever.

Rather than frying a whole chicken, we opted to fry boneless, skinless chicken breasts. We cut them into a few shapes, and found large nuggets or chicken strips worked best. The popcorn chicken turned out moist and good but didn't have the same amount of flavor since the flavor is in the brine.

The Best Fried Chicken My Dad Ever Ate-

1 lb of boneless, skinless chicken breasts cut into strips OR 1 lb of chicken breast tenderloins

Brine:

• 1/2 cup orange juice
• 1 tsp each salt, pepper and garlic OR
• 3 tsps of Tony Chachere's Original Creole Seasoning and a dash of hot sauce

When she said salt, pepper and garlic, I asked her if Tony's would work instead because my family has been really liking it since I use it in beans and other things. She said "That's really good too, if you use that, add a dash of hot sauce." - For commercial hot sauces, my family really likes Crystal. 

Mix the seasonings with the orange juice and put the chicken and orange juice into a large Ziplock freezer bag. Squeeze all the air out and put it in the fridge for 12 hours or more. In our case, it wound up being about 18 hours. Every time someone opens the fridge for something, have them turn over the bag.

Time to fry!

Wash:

• 1 egg
• 1 cup milk

Whisk together

Coating:

• 2 cups of flour
• 1 1/2 tsps each salt and pepper

Heat about 1 1/2 inches of oil in a big heavy frying pan or wok. I recommend canola or peanut oil. Put paper towels on a plate or in a baking pan to drain the chicken when it's done frying.

Remove the chicken from the brine, except there actually won't be any brine left. Seriously, that half cup of orange juice was about a tablespoon of liquid in the bottom of the bag. Pat it dry. Dip the chicken in the milk/egg wash and let the excess fall off before dredging it in the flour. 

Now, for the flour mixture, I used a tip from this recipe and mixed just a little bit of the egg/milk wash into the flour and rubbed it with my finger tips to make tiny chunks that got stuck on the surface. So the coating wasn't thick, but had great texture. Dredging is an old term my mom always used. It means to drag a piece through flour, front and back. 

Fry the pieces, turning as necessary until golden brown on all sides. Since the pieces are small, they were cooked throughout after the chicken was golden brown.  Put them on the paper towels to drain. Tell your daughter to cut into one to make sure it's done. Watch your daughter cut into one, try it then cut into a second just to make sure and eat that piece too.

It's juicy and delicious. The recipe can be doubled easily for larger families.

And really, this is the best fried chicken. I get it now, why Dad liked it so much. The real question is: Will there be any left when my husband wakes up?