Garlic Fried Chicken
rec.food.recipes/Allen (1997)
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My favorite, not REALLY fried, but the BEST:

chicken, whole cut up fryer, or "pick of the chicks" cut-up
Soak chicken in buttermilk for 1-4 hours.

Roll chicken in a mixture of:
1 cup flour
1/3 cup corn meal
1 teaspoon pepper (fresh ground is always the best)
1 teaspoon poultry seasoning (that mix of marjoram, thyme, rosemary etc)
1 teaspoon paprika (hot or sweet, depends on the mood I'm in)

1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup oil
garlic

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Melt butter; add oil and minced or pressed garlic (2,3,4 cloves?!?!). Get the chicken in on top quickly (skin down), and brown chicken in the oil/butter/garlic mixture.

NOTE: You will burn the garlic in this recipe ONE TIME, and it will break you of EVER wanting to do that again! Never brown the garlic too much, or it's bitter as can be. Overcooked garlic is the WORST taste in the world, and garlic cooked right is the best flavor that ever was. Better underbrowned than overbrowned, ALWAYS.

Place the chicken in a single layer in baking dish; cook in 350 degree oven for 45 minutes, or until done. Turn once, late.

The pan drippings, of course, make the MOST righteous gravy, if you can stand the calories.

My other observations about frying chicken, in general:

1. The best fried chicken I ever had was boiled before it was fried. Parboiled 'til just tender, then floured up and fried crisp. Just salted the chicken, peppered some flour, and fried it crisp. MMMM. The best.

2. The best fried chicken I ever had was running around in the yard about twenty minutes before it was fried. Store bought chickens are too much water and not enough chicken.

3. Other than that, another trick is to "steam" the chicken. Start it frying, of course a seasoned black skillet is imperative, and after the chicken is "seared", you cover it and reduce the heat WAY down, and let it steam like that for an hour. Yep, an hour. Then you uncover it, and either serve it, or fry it back crisp.

That's all I know.