Medicinal Chicken

It's 9:07 in the morning and the day is already off to a dubious start, thanks to the traffic ticket I got this morning. In my defense, I thought I stopped. According to the video though, I didn't. Further to my defense, I have two small children, one of them who spent the night in my bed kicking all night long. So maybe I was a little tired.

It's the kind of day where I would likely made this amazing chicken for dinner, you know, to be a comfort after a long day in the trenches of modern life. Where the trenches are trying to manage getting your kids to eat something, get dressed and get to school on time. Unless you don't comfort yourself with food. Or are a vegetarian. And I applaud you!

This is amazing fried chicken. I usually serve this with a delicious pasta salad (maybe the recipe for my favorite pasta salad another day) if we're going on a picnic. I like using legs because you can typically get about 10 of them for about $3.50. That's a bargain!

Fried Chicken

2 eggs

3/4 c. milk

1 tbsp salt

1 tbsp pepper

Whisk those ingredients together. Add the chicken legs. Put in your fridge for a little while and forget about it. How long is a little while? Anywhere between 5 minutes and 1 hour. I usually stick mine in for about 30 minutes.

2 c flour

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp paprika

2 tsp thyme (if dried, 1 tsp if ground)

Do you ever have a "dump" recipe? Where you eyeball everything and then hope for the best? When I'm in a rush I do that with this recipe. This is approximately what you put in the flour mixture. You can add more or less depending on what you like. I love the thyme flavor that comes through.

Mix the dry ingredients together.

This is where it gets ugly. Say some apologies now.

Get out a large fry-pan. Put in about 2-3 inches of vegetable oil and heat it up on high to medium high.

Strange fact: my grandfather believed that his children never got appendicitis or broken bones because their family only used Mazola. He also believed he knew the locations of several worm farms that McDonalds got their "meat" from for hamburgers. He drove me past them one time. He was the coolest grandpa ever. Also, you can comfort yourself with the knowledge that although you're serving your family fried food for dinner, if it's Mazola, you may be saving on hospital bills.

Ok, so your oil is hot! Roll those chicken legs around in the flour. They should be totally opaque with flour. Once they're coated, place them in oil and let it go to town. Don't move it around. Let it sit there and get really browned up. I'd say 5-7 minutes. Then flip it. It should be a beautiful mahogany color. Let the other side cook 5-7 minutes. You may need to turn on your kitchen fan and reassure the smoke detector. Sometimes it happens.

If you're really worried about the whole mahogany-on-the-outside-bloody-on-the-inside conundrum, take out one leg and cut into it to have a look. If it's bloody, put it in and give all the legs an additional minute or three. Usually 5-7 minutes works for me.

I served this with baked potatoes and peas mixed with corn. I'd say the whole meal for my family of four cost me less than $15. My kids even ate this! Well, Picky ate the coating and left the meat.

But that's a step in the right direction.