Chicken Fried Oh My Goodness

Chicken frying anything makes almost anything scrumptious.  I cannot lie, I love fried chicken.  When I worked at Table 52, Sunday was my favorite day because it was fried chicken Sunday's and at the end of the night there was usually some left over and even room temperature or chilled it was super tasty.  It's all in the brining and seasoning.  It's imperative to brine chicken if you're going to fry it or even cook it at all, at least at the restaurant level, maybe not at home.  But anyways, oooooo, it is good.  Just this morning I was reminded of it when I woke up and saw that Chef Art Smith was following me on twitter.  Hmm, so I followed him back and told him I missed the fried chicken.  I thought about mentioning him bringing Oprah over to one of my dinners but I decided against it.  That would be so cool though.  And Gale too, she'd be invited.

So speaking of chicken I made a chicken liver pate the other day for one of my dinners and spread it through a stencil which says, "XPLICIT," and we play Busta Rhymes along with the course.  It's also served with a hand cut pasta in a butter and black truffle sauce.  For a dinner I had a couple days following I decided to roll the pate into a torchon shape and chicken fry it.  I served it on the bottom of a shot glass as a single bite with a pickled onion and mustard seed sorbet with watermelon rind.  This dish has several plays of traditional charcuterie elements, southern picnics, and pate en croute....
This is what I do to chicken fry.  I coat whatever I am using in corn starch and tap off the excess starch.  But remember to have your chicken, fish, pate, whatever it is seasoned, brined, etc first.  Then I make an egg and buttermilk mixture-two egg yolk and about 1/2 cup of buttermilk, more or less depending on how much you are frying.  I coat my elements in the egg mixture.  Then I have a combination of all purpose flour, fresh thyme leaves, cayenne pepper, salt, black pepper, garlic and onion powders (in this case I didn't go heavy on the last two powders because there was black truffle in my pate and it was served with the onion sorbet which was strong as it is so I didn't want to over power).  So I take the element, the pate, from the egg and roll it into this flour and spice combo.  Once it's coated I put it back in the egg mixture, coating it again, being careful not to lose my seasoned coating and then I put it back in the flour spice combo again.  Essentially I want two layers of this last seasoned mixture bound with the egg.  I fry it at 350 till it's golden and crispy.  That's it.  The tricks of chicken frying are in your seasonings and brinings.  Have fun with it but not too much fun because it's not the healthiest cooking method and it's addicting.  Oh and especially if it's a liver pate.