The Weekend Recap, Fried Chicken

This weekend Noah and I made Thomas Keller's fried chicken.  The recipe came from his book Ad Hoc At Home, so for obvious legal reasons I can't divulge the recipe.  But here are some pictures of the final product:

Cute little sprig of deep fried thyme

Yes there are only 3 thighs from 2 chickens...  don't ask.

So while I can't share the recipe, I can talk a little about the process.  We had to use two rather small chickens, 2.75 lbs and 3 lbs.  The night before we parted them up and made our brine.  The brine had lemon, garlic, thyme, and of course salt.  We used a flake salt that I found at Penzey's.  I woke up at 6 the next morning and dropped the chicken in the brine and let them brine all day.  I had to use my giant aluminum fry pot to brine them.  It wasn't until later that day that the thought ran through my mind, "Wait a minute...  are you supposed to brine things in aluminum?"  Sure enough, I found that lemon and salt can react with aluminum and cause your food to taste metallic.  You can instantly tell if your brine is reacting with the aluminum if your garlic heads turn a blueish purple color.  When it came time to cook my garlic was still white so I figured we were safe, and everything turned out fantastic.

The frying process was a lot of fun.  I let Noah do the majority of the work.  You split your flour and spice mixture in two bowls and put your buttermilk in a separate bowl.  The chicken goes in the flour first, then the buttermilk, then the flour again, and then you drop it in your peanut oil.  When it's done you put it on a cooling rack and season it with a little sea salt.  Sea salt is used because it's a very fine salt that dissolves almost immediately.  The end result was outstanding.  It was the best fried chicken I've ever eaten, hands down, bar-none. 

Next week Noah and I will be doing another series of recipes from the same book.  We plan on making his roasted tomato sauce, homemade meatballs, and...  get this...  we're going to make homemade pasta.  I've never done it before.  I've never even HAD homemade pasta before.  I have no idea what I'm signing on for, but I'm excited about it.  Shit yeah. 

-CJ