I guess I should go into that a bit more. Sure, I like a bit of breading. And if breading is done right, I'll eat every bite. Meaning, if I didn't eat every bite of the breading (something I seldom seem to do), the chicken was over-breaded. So, we are looking at a narrow window of perfection. A bit of flour and spice can work wonders. I've tasted it. But more than a bit is pointless and gets left on my plate... if it doesn't slip off into the grease and a make a bloody mess of the pan before then, which is what usually happens to me.
Bottom line, there is no breading on these suckers.
- Bacon Fat
- Leftover
- From a single pack
- Duck Fat
- Leftover
- From a deuce of birds
- In total, there was somewhere between 1.5-2 cups of grease.
- Chicken Thighs
- Two Big
- Two Small
I warmed and melted The Grease in a Cast Iron Pan; and then, let it cool a bit.
I placed The Chicken Thighs face down in The Grease. Ideally, they would be floating in the stuff, so one would never have to flip them, flipping would be easy, and/or there is little chance of them sticking to the sides and/or bottom. But I only covered The Thighs ¾ of the way with Grease, so I had to nudge them every few minutes to ensure they weren't sticking.
From there, I fried on medium for about 20 minutes. Or more accurately, I took them out, cut into them, and found them bloody after about 15 minutes. So, they needed a few minutes longer than that.
Next time, I'll likely just keep on frying until the bubbles die down... maybe use a deeper pot.
Originally, I'd thought of crisping the skin. The skin on these was delightful. It's like bacon... crispy bacon, which is the entire point of fried chicken, if you ask me. But whatever. Once the skin was crisp, I was intending to finish The Chicken in the oven. But really, I found the difference between crispy skin and fully cooked innards to be minimal.
The bigger pieces worked better, as the small thighs got pretty dry, while the big ones stayed juicy.
Oh, finally, it's salt to taste at the table. And although I shook a few flakes of Red Pepper into The Grease, I did not taste any heat.
Still, very tasty... and plenty crunchy skin.
August, 2020