Lard Have Mercy, Part 2

Consider, please, chicken fried in the Southern style—more specifically, in the style of Edna Lewis.

Miss Lewis’s recipe¹ takes patience but not much work. Soak pieces of cut-up chicken in brine overnight in the refrigerator, then soak them all day in buttermilk, whose acids soften the meat ever so slightly and give it a whisper of tanginess. Remove from the refrigerator and drain the chicken pieces on a rack for an hour before cooking to shed the chill.

For the frying medium you will need about a pound of rendered lard, a stick of butter, and a half-cup or so of salty, funky, sweet country ham sliced or chopped fine. Set the lard in a wide cast-iron skillet over medium heat, add the butter and ham, and cook until the ham browns and the water in the butter has all boiled away. Then fish out the ham pieces with a spoon. If you can resist tasting the fried ham at this point, you’re stronger than I.

Now comes the cooking: Turn up the heat under the fat, dredge the chicken pieces in flour seasoned with salt and pepper, and place the chicken pieces carefully in the lard, starting with the skin side down. Do not crowd the pan—that will make the lard cool off, which in turn will make the chicken pieces greasy. The fat should come up about halfway on the pieces, which should bubble excitedly as they cook. Give them about ten minutes per side, until the outside is a deep golden brown. If you’re worried about the doneness of the chicken, stick a knife in the thick part; the chicken is ready when the juices run clear and the knife is quite hot when held flat against your upper lip. It’s nice to let the chicken drain for a minute or two before serving.

What is beautiful about this meal is the combination of simplicity and thoroughness. On the one hand, you just roll some chicken in flour and fry it; on the other, you take the time to treat each of the few ingredients carefully. It’s not hard to do, as long as you pay attention while you’re frying, and yet the results—delicate, crunchy crust against moist, flavorful chicken—are outstanding. There’s a lesson there, I suspect, that applies to more than just cooking.

Footnote

¹ I first found this recipe in the cookbook Miss Lewis wrote with Scott Peacock, The Gift of Southern Cooking, but it appears elsewhere, including the essay “What is Southern?” that appeared in the January 2008 issue of Gourmet:

“Southern is a beautiful dish of fried chicken, cooked carefully in home-rendered lard and butter with pieces of country ham added, then served with a brown gravy spooned over spoon bread.”