Perfect Fried Chicken

I am very fond of home made fried chicken. Not that I make it that often (it's time consuming), but it's oh-so-good. Sometimes I cheat and make the easy kind, with speedy breading, using boneless breasts and making what amounts to home-made chicken tenders. But yesterday, I made a vat of the real stuff for a potluck picnic with a bunch of friends.

I won't say that mine is perfect, and I still haven't figured out how to keep the coating super-crispy once it cools (any ideas?), but I do have some tips for making pretty darn good fried chicken. Here's what you need:

1. Buttermilk: skin the chicken drumsticks, then soak them in buttermilk and red pepper flakes overnight, or at least for a few hours, to keep it particularly moist.

2. Double coating: dip the buttermilk-soaked chicken in flour that's been salt-and-peppered, then in egg, then in well-spiced fine bread crumbs (use cumin, thyme, salt, pepper, garlic powder, etc, to your taste). The double dipping creates a nice crunchy coating, in substitution for greasy skin.

3. Chicken legs with four "sides": fry chicken legs on one broad side until the coating is mahogany colored before turning; turn once and fry further. (Turning too soon means the coating is more likely to come off.) Then prop them up on their narrow sides to fry each of those before removing from pan, to ensure you've cooked them through.

4. Oil, carefully monitored for temperature: the oil should be hot enough for the chicken to bubble pleasantly when you first put it in the pan. The oil should not be smoking. Medium heat should maintain the nice sizzle without actually appearing to boil with large bubbles. If you cook it too hot, the coating will burn before the chicken cooks through. If you cook it too low, the coating will get greasy.

5. Air space: be sure there's a little space between the chicken pieces in the pan. If they touch, the coating won't crisp up nicely.

6. Patience: it takes time to fry chicken drumsticks all the way through. This is no rush meal. I would say something like 30 minutes of total cooking time is about right, but you need to monitor carefully, turn the legs as little as possible. Pierce one with sharp knife to test for doneness; juices should run clear, not pink.

Yum! Happy summer.