Fried Chicken Recipe

• Dry ground seasonings as desired (e.g. pepper, paprika, onion powder, garlic powder, etc.)
• 1 fryer chicken, cut up (see notes below)
• 1 quart buttermilk
• ½ cup salt
• Flour
• A quantity of oil suitable for the desired cooking method (see notes below)

Brining

1. Combine all seasonings in desired quantities to make a spice rub.
2. Pour the buttermilk into a bowl and dissolve in the salt.
3. Piece by piece, roll the chicken around in the spice rub.
4. Submerge each chicken piece in the buttermilk.
5. Cover the bowl of buttermilk and chicken and refrigerate. You can get by with as few as two hours if you are in a hurry, but the flavor will suffer. You can also park it overnight, but in this case you should reduce the salt to ⅓ cup.
6. Shortly before you want to cook the chicken, remove it from the buttermilk and drain. Roll it around in flour so that it is well covered in flour. Shake off the excess flour.

Deep frying

1. Immerse chicken in 360°F oil. Cooking according to the specified time for each chicken part:
2. * Breasts: 10 minutes
3. * Drumsticks: 12 minutes
4. * Thighs: 13–14 minutes
5. * Wings: 10 minutes
6. Drain the chicken on a wire rack over a sheet pan.

Pan frying

1. Heat enough oil (or shortening) to come 3–4 mm up the side of the pan to 325°F.
2. Carefully place chicken in pan, skin side down. Cook until brown (10–12 minutes). Turn over and cook other side. Doing this will require some careful placement in the pan so as to cook the slow-cooking meat (such as thighs) more intensely than the fast-cooking meat (such as wings and breasts).
3. Drain the chicken on a wire rack over a sheet pan.

Pressure frying

1. Put the chicken pieces into hot oil (larger pieces first) and fry about 3 minutes until very light brown. Then put on the lid and lock it.
2. Cook at a pressure of 5–6 pounds for about 7 minutes.
3. Drain the chicken on a wire rack over a sheet pan.