Is it? But what exactly is “southern styled chicken” anyway? Why is there even a “southern style”? (considering the young age of America as well as cultural similiarity between north and south)
Yes. It’s because the chicken is fried. That’s it.
“Southern styled chicken”? Whut part of the South you from, son?
There is no, ah say no, cultural similarity between North and South.
The chicken shall rise agin!
Is Kentucky really southern? It was never truly a part of the Confederacy.
Agreed, and geographically speaking, the upper borders of TN, AK, and NC would appear to be the natural cut off for anything you could reasonably deem southern. When you’re closer to Canada than the Gulf of Mexico, “Southern” becomes quite a stretch.
Alaska? :dubious:
If you just consider any piece of chicken that is fried, southern fried chicken, then yes, it is, but in general a true southern fried chicken is simply chicken pieces first soaked with a milk/egg mixture and then dredged through a flour/corn meal mixture seasoned with salt and pepper (optionally, add garlic or other ‘family recipe’ seasonings), then fried at about 350F.
For spicy southern fried chicken, people here typically add about a cup of hot sauce to the milk/egg mixture.
IMHO, KFC chicken, while flavorful, isn’t the same as a home made southern fried chicken, nor does it have the same texture. For chain places, Bojangles comes a lot closer to what comes out of my pot.
Kentucky Fried Chicken is the patented process invented by Harlan Sanders (his real name, although I think the “Colonel” is only honorary). It’s about as “traditional” as Coca Cola. Sanders came up with a pressure-cooker-based method of cooking chicken that gets the inside nicely and uniformly cooked in a short time without burning the outside, and leaving the chicken moist.
It’s not exactly a classic Southern deep-fried chicken recipem, unless your Southern mother used a pressure fryer.
You can get info from the Wikipedia article, or from William Poundstone’s first Big Secrets book. Poundstone also claims that KFC doesn’t (or at least, no longer) has “eleven secret herbs and spices”. The sample they had analyzed in a food lan contained salt, pepper, and MSG, in addition to eggs and flour.
That would be creepy.
Well, people consider San Francisco to be in Northern California.
Isn’t Southern fried chicken always fried in a skillet, rather than deep-fried?
That sounds a lot like broasted chicken, which was invented in Wisconsin,IIRC. Is his process different?
The KFC stuff tastes awful to me and not at all like chicken prepared like Khendrask mentioned. It must be the spices/herbs they use in the breading, or perhaps it’s a poorer grade of bird.
I couldn’t say. I don’t know what “broasted” Wisconsin-style chicken is. But Sanders invented and patented his method a long time back. Not long enough to be “traditional”, though. See Poundstone’s book for details.
Genuine Southern fried chicken at a restaurant usually says “20 minutes wait” next to it. If it doesn’t, don’t order it unless that’s all the restaurant does. Good fried chicken takes time.
He was a Kentucky colonel, which is, indeed, an honorary title (but an officially-bestowed title, all the same).
The “Broasting” wiki article says it dates to the early 1950s. Sanders came up with his similar method in 1939, according to his wiki page:
So he predates “Broasted” chicken. IIRC, he patented his method. I don’t know how Broasting got around that.
Moved to Cafe Society from GQ.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Not disputing the process. Just trying to provide some information on what ‘broasting’ is.
Thanks for that. I’d heard of “broasting”, but didn’t realize it was a trademarked method of making chicken.
In any event, it doesn’t appear that either Broasting or Sanders’ method are what most people would mean by “Southern Fried Chicken”, at least before the advent of the chains.