With fried chicken, the way it works is that you wrap the fried chicken pieces in absorbent paper towels, then you microwave it and apply hand pressure after. This removes about 80 to 90% of the fried oil. The end result is 90% of the taste, with only 10% of the fat.
How common is this? Is this blasphemy? It works for short rib steaks which are very fattening.
Who told you this and how certain are you that this is in fact what’s going on? Seems to me, there would be no way to tell by simply looking at the paper towel, what’s fat and what’s water.
Wait a few hours after blotting. The water will evaporate while the oil remains. It will probably wick and spread so the difference in weight of the napkin before and after should give the a figure for the residual fat. I’d guess it’s negligible, well under a few grams.
Unless you have some weird definition for greasy, your chicken is covered in oil. Leave a piece on a piece of newspaper or, if you really feel confident, one of your dress shirts. A thing fried in fat has fat on it.
My fried chicken is not covered in oil. Some small amount is absorbed in the breading. Some small amount remains on the surface and when I put it down on paper towels that gets absorbed there.
Pro tip: Forget the microwave. To reheat something meant to be crispy (like fried chicken), pop it in an air-fryer on high for a couple minutes. The crispiness returns like it was just fried.
Yes, it should be reasonably dry when it comes out of the cooking oil, unless your cooking oil wasn’t hot enough. I put it over a wire rack, let whatever residual oil there is drip, but it doesn’t come out in any way what I would call “covered in oil” and not something that requires blotting with a paper towel, for sure.
The rack works very well in a warm oven so any remaining grease will stay fluid and drip off. And of course you’ll shake off excess as you remove pieces from the pan also.
Set a piece of fried chicken, drained any way you like, on your finest white dress shirt. I mean, don’t really do that because it’s certain to leave an oily stain. It leaves the stain because chicken fried in oil is covered in oil. Perhaps not dripping but covered.