Adventures with the deep fryer

There are many great things about getting married, one of which is the opportunity to re-outfit your kitchen with all kinds of new dishes and utensils and cooking gadgets.  For the last couple of weeks, I've been using our new pots and pans, serving food that looks beautiful (one person's slightly biased opinion) on our new dishes, and experimenting with some new gadgets.  Today I was excited to try something new, that I've never used before; a mini-deep fryer.  And I wanted to kick-off my deep-fried cooking with an absolute classic, fried chicken.

To start, I got up this morning put the chicken in a dish, and covered it in buttermilk.  I then left it to soak for 8 hours.  Then I took it out, rolled it in some seasoned flour, dipped it in an egg wash, rolled it in some blue corn meal, and stuck it in the fryer.  I did thighs first for about 15 minutes, then followed up with the drumsticks for about 12.  I served the chicken with a potato salad out of a Bobby Flay grilling cookbook with a slice of cornbread.

At this point you might be wondering why there are no pictures.  Hadn't I started to provide pictures of my cooking?  Doesn't it make a better story?  The answer is yes and yes.  But the reason there are no pictures is because when I bit into this beautiful chicken I created, I was disappointed.  It wasn't that it wasn't cooked through, or had a bad taste.  The first problem was that it had no taste.  It was incredibly bland.  The second was that the coating was just too thick.  It was like there was a tortilla chip over the chicken.  And the salad was much the same way.  I hadn't made enough of the vinaigrette and it was just fried potatoes on spinach with a little bit of bleu cheese.  Here is what it ended up looking like:

I was fully intended on sharing the recipe for what turned out to be a great looking dish.  I had taken pictures of all the steps along the way.  But in the end, there is no point in providing a recipe for something that I didn't enjoy.  So, I'm going back to the drawing board on the fried chicken.  In the next iteration, I won't be using the blue corn meal, and will instead do a double coating of the seasoned flour, but will be a little more heavy-handed with some of the spices.  I think I also need to dilute the egg wash a little further, possibly with the buttermilk, so it doesn't go on so heavy.

But, I couldn't let the night end on that note.  So I did what any good home cook would do; I made dessert.  The dessert was quite simple, but one that I knew would please.  I made strawberry shortcake.

Strawberry shortcake is incredibly simple.  For starters, you take fresh strawberries, and cut them into bite-sized pieces.  Cover them with a couple tablespoons of sugar.

Next, make the whipped cream.  Put about half a cup of whipping cream in a mixing bowl.  Using an electric mixer, mix on low until it is just starting to get firm.  Add in a tablespoon of vanilla and a couple tablespoons of powdered sugar.  Continue to mix for about one more minute.

Take two store-bought angel food rounds (hey, I'm not a pastry chef).  Fill with the strawberry mixture, top with the whipped cream, and enjoy.

Yes, I just cheated a little on angel food cake.  And yes, I just gave you a recipe for whipped cream.  But it was one of those rough cooking days for an amateur chef, and I needed to finish on a strong note. 

There will be more deep frying in my future, complete with recipes for you.  Until then, enjoy your whipped cream.