winner, winner chicken dinner!

It's no secret I love to cook, but there is one meal that Peter asks begs for that I NEVER cook.....fried chicken! Never, like in 30 years of marriage, I may have fried chicken a handful of times. I don't know why. Maybe because there are endless chicken recipes that I prefer to make, or maybe I have a secret fear that the chicken may look like it's cooked and it ends up being all pretty on the outside and bloody on the inside {although I am not speaking from experience here}. :O) So, after much begging for fried chicken {and an offer to help cook it} we had FRIED CHICKEN for dinner tonight!!!

I must admit that Peter did most of the cooking, but our joint effort at chicken frying was definitely a winner. We really didn't have a recipe, just a combo of several recipes that ended up being maybe the best I've ever eaten!! Here's our recipe...... I had read that the "secret" to fried chicken is soaking it in buttermilk for several hours or overnight, so after cutting up a whole chicken {which btw, I am awesome at thanks to momma's teaching!}, I put the chicken parts in a large bowl and covered with buttermilk. If you are like me and don't have buttermilk on hand, you can make your own adding 1 T. vinegar (or lemon juice) per cup of milk {momma taught me that too!}. The next thing I read about frying chicken {we took cooking this chicken very serious...LOL}, was to use a cast iron skillet. Of course, we don't have one of those either, but we borrowed Nanny's old skillet from Peter's mom. Next, the flour mixture....Peter threw together a concoction of flour, parsely flakes, salt, pepper, paprika, garlic powder, and Old Bay seasoning. Once the oil was hot, he dredged the soaked chicken in the flour mixture and put in the skillet to fry.

We were worried about how long to cook it, so we looked online to see what the average cooking time was {and found out we really should buy a meat thermometer as well}. We ended up cooking it about 6 minutes, then turning and cooking another 12-14 minutes until golden brown. The chicken was PERFECT!!! And sooooo MOIST!! I really believe the buttermilk did the trick!!

Peter was very proud of how good the chicken turned out. It has taken him all these years to start cooking, but he really enjoys cooking and I really love having a partner in the kitchen!