For Hungarian fried chicken, the
holy order of breading is: flour, eggs and breadcrumbs. You remove the fat and the skins. If you don’t want a bloody chicken it
is best to remove the bones too. Most of the chicken sold today has underdeveloped bone
structure. As you heat the meat the blood is released. The blood may pool at
the joints or bleed onto the plate. You may have the money for a “happy
chicken” but there is no guarantee the bird you brought home had a fit life
roaming the countryside scratching for worms on the run from the rooster’s
intentions. The organic industry is unreliable to say the least. Your free
range bird may spent only two weeks in a tiny enclosure before the
slaughterhouse. It may be a bit less stressed as a result, but a happy life… it did not have. Then again, if quickly processed and insufficiently bled it too can end
up bleeding on your plate like the rest. However if you are certain you brought
home the perfect organically grown free range chicken, go ahead and prepare it with the bone in as we used to do it before factory farms.
DEBONED BREADED CHICKEN
2 half chicken breast and two legs,
at room temperature
1-1/2 cups flour
2 eggs, well beaten
2 cups breadcrumbs
oil for frying
- If you start with a whole chicken cut it up first.
- From here on you will prepare only the breast and the leg meat for breading and frying.
- Separate the thighs from the drumsticks.
- Remove the fat and the skin and debone each of the leg pieces.
- Remove the skin from the breast pieces.
- Cut the meat away from the attached breastbone.
- Trim the fat and chop the two half breasts in six pieces. This way they will correspond to the size of the leg pieces.
- Wash and pat dry with paper towel.
- Lightly salt each piece of chicken on both sides.
- Cover and set them aside for a couple of hours. Do not refrigerate.
- Do not discard the bones, skin, back pieces or the wings. These will make delicious chicken stock. If you can’t use them right of way it is perfectly safe to refreeze the meat scraps to use later.
- Set out 3 plates, one each: flour, well beaten eggs, and breadcrumbs.
- First, roll the chicken through the plate of flour.
- Next, dip each piece into the well beaten eggs.
- Finally, roll the pieces into the breadcrumbs.
- Press the crumbs onto the chicken to assure full coverage.
- In a large heavy fry pan add 2 inches of oil for frying.
- Heat the oil slowly to medium heat.
- When the oil is ready to fry, slide in a piece of chicken.
- Wait a little before adding the next one.
- Depending on the size of the pot, fry 2 or 3 chicken pieces at a time.
- Leave lots of room for each piece for turning and not touching.
- Turn with a pair of kitchen thongs. Do not pierce with a fork.
- Maintaining a steady heat fry the chicken pieces to golden brown.
- Drain on paper towel and serve immediately.
