Hedonia

Fried chicken

And I helped!

My husband was hankering for a little down-home comfort food, Southern style. You know the drill, deviled eggs, biscuits, greens and -- of course -- fried chicken.

Now get this: Neither of us had ever fried chicken before. Seriously. Clearly this was a problem that needed to be rectified. But to the novice fryer, the amount of information is daunting. There are hundreds of techniques and recipes, conflicting tips and pointers, adamant and urgent pleas from people who insist their way is the only way to fried chicken nirvana. Mercy, I do believe I am getting the vapors.

A few things were abundantly clear. You do want to marinate your chicken, and you probably want it to be in buttermilk. You'll need to dredge in flour at the minimum, though additions and embellishments to that layer are myriad. You obviously need a fat with a high smoke point. For Fried Chicken 101, this will get you through the first midterm exam.

Buttermilk, check. But which fat? Some say you must use lard; others insist on shortening; yet others suggest canola oil with some bacon drippings. Sigh. We don't keep shortening in the house (trans fats and all...), nor do we generally have much in the way of lard. We went for peanut oil, with a healthy (or not, really) drizzle of bacon grease for good measure.

So. A jumble of legs, thighs and breasts emerged from their milky bath and finished off with a dusting of flour. How coquettish! After a light rest, they were ready for their close-up ... with a simmering cauldron of hot oil.

Frying chicken is not for the weak of heart, and I don't just mean those with blocked arteries. It is an explosive, noisy and sometimes dangerous process. Even covered, spattering oil would occasionally escape. I think we inhaled as much fat as we ingested at the end of the day.

But then, when your chicken comes out golden-brown, the fat wicked off onto paper bags and left to rest in a warmer, it's worth it in the end. Pair that up with some super-fluffy biscuits (recipe courtesy Bacon Press) and good old collard greens done the way I do all my greens. All that's missing is some white gravy, but had we gone that far, we would have had to start the meal with an amuse-bouche of Lipitor.

Praise the lord and pass the biscuits, dinner is served.

High-roast chicken and potatoes

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Roast chicken is simple and satisfying. Growing up, I never really dug chicken (feel free to chime in on this, mom), but then again I was not much of a meat eater to begin with. Now, a nice roast chicken is high on my list of foods I actively crave on a regular basis.

When I was in France on an exchange program in high school, I was impressed and surprised to learn that the French do not eat fancy food bathed in rich, creamy sauces on a daily basis. Rather, simple roast chicken is typical fare of the French household: economical, flavorful, easy and wholesome. It's not uncommon for it to be a weekly meal.

We roast a lot of chicken ourselves, maybe not quite weekly, but sometimes close. Typically, though, we roast it as-is, trimmed and resting on a bed of cubed root veggies. But time was that DPaul would butterfly the chicken and roast it in a hotter than normal oven; after seeing exactly this on America's Test Kitchen, we knew we had to go back to try that method again.

Their method varied from DPaul's in minor ways. They sliced the potatoes and rested them in the bottom of a roasting pan, creating something more akin to a gratin. I think this is a fantastic use of chicken drippings. Also, whereas they roast in a hot oven, DPaul used to broil on both sides. Having had it both ways, I can say this method is a winner. The white meat was juicy, the dark meat sufficiently done, and the potatoes were tender and tasty. The only thing I could see doing differently would be to slice in some parsnips, carrot or onion in with the potatoes for a little diversity, but that's really splitting hairs.

But one roast chicken, even a Rosie, is more than two people can comfortably eat. So when we learned that the lovely Anita was left to her own devices whilst her husband supped on Batali chow (Batali ciao?), a spontaneous wee dinner party was obviously in order. That she graciously offered to bring homemade bleu cheese dressing was thoughtful; that she also happened to have a lovely head of romaine and some homegrown tomatoes to put it on was fortuitous, cuz we didn't.

(Photo: DPaul Brown)