Maybe it’s age, but I find myself doing a lot of tallying: subway rides taken, newspapers read, and so on. The other night, tossing a wokful of kung pao chicken, my focus hit on chickens and how many I’ve consumed in my lifetime.
Knocking off toddlerhood, I figure two a month would equal about 800 birds. But with chicken it’s always hard to tell. How do you factor in a chicken salad sandwich, a bowl of chicken chili, or a handful of shreds from the previous night’s dinner? Eggs are a tough one, since they’re also sort of a bird, but I tend to avoid certain aspects of the bird such as feet and coxcombs, which makes the math a little easier. Either way, it’s a lot of poultry, though assuredly on the low end when it comes to the national per capita figure.
Unfortunately for the chicken, it’s born to be eaten. But to give it a proper, Christian death, you may as well fry the thing. How you fry it, of course, conjures vicious regional debate, and some may even find it sac religious for us to write about fried chicken from our Broadway headquarters. I’ve eaten the fried chicken at Charles’ Southern up in Harlem, and it’s damn tasty, and better than ours. But I’ll take it as a positive sign that our friends don’t seem to mind dragging their butts from all parts of town for a few baskets of our chicken.
Unlike a steakhouse, which is only as good as its sides, fried chicken is good as is: chicken with a side of napkins, preferably Bounty. However, a drizzle of honey is a wise addition: sweet and salty and so forth. Honeycomb takes your chicken to the next level: sticky, crunchy, hard to handle, it falls unpredictably off your spoon, onto your drumstick in little chunks resulting in a sort of hot, crispy chicken candy.
Chicken candy. How to figure that into the lifetime chicken consumption index…
Fried Chicken w/ Honeycomb
Serves 3-4 depending on hunger
2 lemons, halved
¼ cup salt plus more for seasoning the chicken
1 quart buttermilk
1 large roaster, about 4 pounds
2 tablespoons garlic powder
2 tablespoons paprika
2 tablespoons minced fresh thyme
flour for dredging
oil for frying
honeycomb (1 package-it comes in rounds. You should be able to get it at a specialty store, or Murray’s Cheese online)
- Cut the bird into 10 pieces: slice off the legs, then cut through the joint at the knee to get the thigh and drumstick. Slice off and reserve the wings. Cut off and halve the breasts widthwise. Clean the livers of any membrane and refrigerate.
- Put the chicken, except the livers. in a large container and cover by a few inches with cold water. Stir in ¼ cup kosher salt. Add the halved lemons and refrigerate overnight.
- The next day, drain and dry the pieces and take out the livers. Stir the spices into the flour. Set up a little frying station: a large bowl of seasoned flour and a large bowl of buttermilk. Set up a cookie sheet with a wire rack on top near the stove.
- Pour 3-4 inches of oil into a large pot over medium high heat and bring to 325-350 degrees.
- Start frying: dredge the pieces in the flour shaking off excess, the buttermilk, back into the flour, again shaking off excess flour, and gently slip into the oil. You’ll have to do this in batches. Fry about 10 minutes, turning with a slotted spoon. The livers take only a few minutes. Remove to the wire rack, season with salt and serve with the honeycomb.
