While chicken is today among the less expensive meats found in your local grocery store, though none of them is cheap, there was a time when yard bird appeared on the family table only for special occasions. Chicken was normally served only for holidays, a birthday, Sunday dinner with the preacher in attendance (hence the title of this chapter), or a visit from a family member who had not been seen for some time. The lyrics which state “we’ll kill the old red rooster when she comes” and “we’ll all have chicken and dumplings when she comes” are suggestive in that regard, as is the wording of thankful remembrance written by the legendary singer/songwriter/storyteller Tom T. Hall and sung by Bobby Bare and numerous other country musicians, “Chicken every Sunday, Lord, chicken every Sunday.”
ANNA LOU’S FRIED CHICKEN
Every dedicated and skilled kitchen wizard has a few recipes that stand out as being truly special. My mother, Anna Lou Casada, was gifted with a wide array of culinary skills, but when it came to frying chicken she invariably outdid herself. It was the standard Sunday meat on the family table.
Cut one (or more) chickens into frying portions (legs, thighs, wings, and halved breast) and leave the skin intact
1 or 2 eggs, whisked
Salt and pepper to taste
Flour
Lard or cooking oil (cast iron skillets should have between an eighth and a quarter inch, and I can’t imagine using any other utensil to fry chicken)
Drench each piece in the egg wash and then coat thoroughly with flour (mix salt and pepper in with the flour) before placing in piping hot oil in a large cast iron pan. It is important that the oil be so hot the chicken sizzles immediately on contact; otherwise it will soak up too much oil. Reduce heat once pieces begin to brown and continue to cook slowly until thoroughly brown and done.
All of this seems simple and straightforward enough, but it was Mom’s final step that made all the difference. Once she had all the chicken fried and placed atop paper towels to drain a bit, she would drain and clean the cast iron skillet then put the fried chicken back in it. She next turned the oven on at low heat (200 degrees or maybe a bit less) and put the chicken in it. She normally did this just before heading off to church. When we returned home after church and once she had readied the rest of the meal, Mom would pop the skillet out of the oven and serve the chicken immediately. Being in the oven seemed to do two things—cook away some of the surplus grease and make the chicken so tender it almost fell from the bones and melted in your mouth.
TIPS: (1)For crustier chicken, do the egg wash/flouring process twice. (2) Use tongs ever so gently to turn the chicken in the pan and transfer it to a serving plate.
JC
—Celebrating Southern Appalachian Food written by Jim Casada and Tipper Pressley
I’ve never been good at frying chicken. I either burn it or don’t get it completely done. I sure would liked to have eaten Anna Lou’s 🙂
If you’d like to pick up a copy of our cookbook you can find it here.
Last night’s video: The First Planting of the Year & Matt’s Procrastinated Long Enough.
Tipper
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My mama always made delicious fried chicken dinners during my childhood. It had the usual wonderful sides of mashed potatoes with gravy, green beans (from our garden) and homemade hot rolls. Mama always made a couple pies on Saturday night to have for dinner too. We would only have something that fancy for Sunday dinner. The rest of the week was more like fried potatoes and beans and cornbread or biscuits. My Hubby’s Italian grandma also made chicken for Sunday dinner. Every Sunday you knew you could stop by if you were hungry, because she always had a big pan of oven baked chicken…and spaghetti with meatballs or lasagna just waiting for visitors. There was always a loaf of homemade bread to go with it. I have no idea how she got her baked chicken so “falling off the bone” tender but she did. Sometimes it was just baked in olive oil with herbs of some sort and lots of time it was baked in a delicious marinara sauce with peppers and onions. All I know is it was yummy every time. If the Priest stopped by on Sunday, he was definitely served Grandma’s chicken and pasta. I miss those days.
A good chicken dinner is one of my favorite meals. I prefer the dark meat. Add some mashed potatoes, green beans and homemade biscuits and you’ve got a meal fit for a king. Oh, and banana pudding for dessert.
I grew up on a farm that always had a lot of chickens. Thousands of them sometimes! We ate lots of eggs and lots of chicken. Not only Sunday dinners but almost every dinner. Sometimes more than once a day.
Of course when the preacher came we fed him chicken, not because he was special but because that’s all we had to offer.
My favorite part of a chicken are the gizzard, liver, heart and that string of increasing smaller immature shellless eggs.
shell-less, shelless, ain’t got no shell yet, heck I don’t know
The book Chicken Every Sunday written by Barbara Taylor in 1943 was a favorite of my mother and I.
Oh Miss Sylvia. I read this book when I was in the 8th or 9th grade. I didn’t remember the author. I was thinking about trying to find out and buying one. Can’t imagine finding out how quick the answer showed up in your comment. Thank you for this information. I’m going to try and find a copy somewhere. I’d sure love to have a copy and read it again. You have made my 78th birthday pretty special, it was yesterday, 3/2, I’ll cherish it. I’ve thought of it so many times over the past years. Thanks again and God bless you and everyone today, tomorrow and always. Hi Miss Tipper and the family. I’m praying for Miss Louzine and for y’all. Been hearing about fires out there in North Carolina and hoping it gets gone sooner than later, praying on that too. Please God help all those in harms way. Miss Louzine you are a special lady and I think of you as a special friend to me. Hope your test all come back stable and that you will be feeling much better. South Mississippi, Jennifer
The book Chicken Every Sunday written by Rosemary Taylor in 1943 was a long ago favorite of mine. I have a copy my mother received as a gift dated 1945.
I’m so jealous. Not really Symptoms, just glad you have it to enjoy and wishing I could enjoy it too.
My mama’s fried chicken was good, but nothing compared to my daddy’s sister, my Aunt Florence. She made the best I’ve ever eaten. Sometimes, it would be just fried, then again, she would fry it, then make gravy and put the chicken back into the gravy and simmer it in her cast iron pan. That’s what I remember about her, plus her good biscuits. If we were at home or going to other family members to eat Sunday dinner, there seemed to always be fried chicken on the table. I have never been able to fry chicken as good as some of my family could. Anna Lou’s sure sounded delicious. I love the idea of putting it back into the cast iron pan and putting it in the oven to stay warm and tender.
I’ve never been good at frying it all the way through either. I use your method! But I do want to get good at just frying it.
My mama always fried chicken on Sundays in her cast iron skillet and it brings back great memories. We grew 50 fryers every year and she singlehandly processed everyone one and froze them, 25 per day. I’ve got her skillet, but I’ve never fried a chicken before. Maybe its time I tried.
Chicken has always a family favorite. My mom fried the best boneless skinless breast. I do a pretty good job with chicken but not as good as my mom. My parents got married in 1948 and lived with my grandparents. My grandfather would kill a chicken every Saturday and my grandmother would fry it. One weekend they were gone and my
Parents had to take care of the chicken. Don’t know how but they managed to kill and cook the chicken. My did had a weak stomach and my mom was only 18 but they did it. I think the appreciated my grandparents much more after that.
My Moms mother would stew a chicken and then dip it in flour and milk mixture. It had a thick coating. I was a picky eater and didn’t like this.
Since we had our own chickens while growing up, we ate a lot of chicken cooked in many ways, fried, baked, stewed, soup-ed, casseroled and sometimes chopped cooked chicken to make chicken gravy for biscuits or taters. And of course chicken for sandwiches and salads: green, tater, or pasta. And like Matt, we always some jellied cranberry to go with it, even in a sandwich. I did this with my own family and still do for my own meals. Love the ‘bird.’ 🙂 Tipper – do you ever eat any of your chickens?
Wanita we’ve never raised meat birds but I would like too 🙂
Tipper – I just read your reply to my question on eating any of your chicken. I feel a bit embarrassed, to not know there was a difference in laying and eating only poultry, as growing up all our chickens (she bought different ‘breeds’) were kept in same runs & coops, and we had eggs from them as well as ate them too. You mean if a chicken is kept for laying eggs they are not edible!? Why? We also had geese and turkeys too and ate both as well as their eggs from time to time, but mostly we ate just the chickens eggs. I hope you will enlighten me on this 🙂 thanks.
Wanita, I’m sorry I didn’t explain very well 🙂 Yes we could eat our chickens but since we have so few hens we would rather save them for the eggs instead of the meat. I wish we had more land and so we could have a larger flock and do both 🙂
🙂 Oh my, Tipper! THANK YOU for enlightening me. I was beginning to think I had been raised and had been living under a rock or something. ha ha As I age I am finding my mind doesn’t function as clearly it maybe should so hence why I misunderstood. As the saying goes: ‘no harm- no foul’ ( fowl) 🙂 Bless you all and early extra blessings to Granny as she counts down to her birthday on Wednesday!
I mentioned in my first comment about my grandparents not eating chickens running loose (today’s free range) chickens. I have not only heard chickens called a “preacher bird” but also know and call free range chickens “barn yard buzzards.” A free range chicken will eat ANY and EVERYTHING, including a fresh “deposit” made by the chicken running in front of it. I read an article by Iowa State University that said it is the free range chickens that are getting the bird flu by eating the manure from wild birds.
I paid $6 for a dozen of Ingles grocery store brand large white eggs this morning. I don’t worry or buy these high dollar brown shell organic, or cage free eggs. I have been eating plain, simple white eggs most of my life and they have not yet killed or caused me any problems. I read a news article over the weekend that said eggs were expected to go up another 40% this year. We ain’t seen nothing yet, just wait until Easter! I think I may try to catch me a couple of buzzards and put them in a pen and see if they will lay eggs.
We always had fried chicken on Sunday when I was growing up. Nanny (my maternal grandmother) fried the best chicken! It was that iron frying pan. I fry good chicken and so does my husband. Mama said they killed a chicken on Saturday for Sunday dinner.
My grandmother made the best fried chicken! But there was a hierarchy as to how the pieces were divided. My grandmother, grandfather and mom got the breasts. My uncle and dad got the wings and thighs and my aunt loved the back and neck. My cousin and I were left with the drumsticks. It wasn’t until my grandparents passed away that I got a breast all to myself!
Those little nuggets on the back are my favorite. My mom told me that was the best part of the whole chicken and she would share it with me sometimes. Now I buy backs cuz they’re cheap and use for soup and bone broth setting aside the nuggets for a treat.
Glad to see you enjoying getting your garden ready and Matt squaring up his layout for his barn/shed:) Matt my dear husband bought a pre-built shed by the amish but he just had the ground graded and stones laid down, I wish he had had cement laid. Bless his heart, he was probably trying to save money but I have had a time with groundhogs digging under and no telling what else. I had my son trap one groundhog but I think another one has moved in and this spring there may be a family. I’m going to have to set another trap and take it for a long ride to the woods. So glad you are enjoying those babies, they grow so fast. I love babies, and toddlers. They are precious!!
When I was growing up, my family often ate chicken and even had it for breakfast when pork wasn’t available. Mom would chase the victim down, wring its neck, scale it in hot water, and finally pluck its feathers before cutting it up. It tasted so different than any store-bought chicken I have ever fried. If the younger generation could see the process, maybe they wouldn’t complain about how much trouble it is to open a pack of chicken from the store and prepare it. My cousin said he went grocery shopping yesterday and paid $17 for a dozen eggs. The same store had a buy one get one free sale on packs of chicken.
After my first attempt to fry chicken was a disaster I never tried again. Thankfully someone came up with Shake-n-bake! It’s the only way I could ever come close to fried chicken minus the oil. I use to like fried KFC chicken, but now can’t tolerate all that grease from it. My Aunt Betty could fry chicken so perfectly crispy and one never tasted the grease. My mom gave up trying to make hers chicken like her sister’s fried chicken. It just never came out as crispy and delicious as Aunt Betty’s.
For years, my mom fried her chicken in a big square electric frying pan. I don’t know exactly how she prepared the meat or the cooking details, but it was delicious. My wife uses a good old cast iron pan. Gaylia’s mention of the white leghorns reminded me of a neighbor lady who would sit in her yard and pluck fryers for a local storekeeper. I never saw her kill the chickens, so somebody might have delivered them freshly slaughtered, ready for skalding and plucking. When she finished, there were white feathers all over the place. This was in the early 1940s.
While my mom did knt use an iron skillet, she did it exactly tje same way by putting it in the oven. it was so good!
I’ve never been able to make fried chicken either. For the same reason as you Tipper. I do love some good fried chicken.
I don’t understand the part about the eighth to quarter inch cast iron skillet, “cast iron skillets should have between an eighth and a quarter inch”. Is that the bottom or sides or both and how would I measure them (especially the bottom)?
Hi Ed,
I reckon she meant the depth of the oil.
Take care,
Dave (stuck up here in yankee land)
Oh can just taste that fried chicken. Sounds delicious.
The first Sunday after Br’er Jim left for college was a memorably great one.
The competition was gone and I got both drumsticks.
Don, I kinda know what you are speaking of, even at 71 years of age, my favorite parts of the chicken are the legs, thighs, wings and my leashed like is the breast. My son’s likes are similar and I sometimes wing up eating the breast out of an 8 piece container of store bought deli fried chicken.
The lady who used to babysit us when my parents were working made the best fried chicken I have ever eaten. We used to stand around the pan while she was cooking and beg for the crunchy brown bits that came out of it. To this day, one of my brother’s favorite meals was her fried chicken, gravy, mashed potatoes, cornbread, and kale greens.
Fried chicken would taste great for breakfast this cool morning. Winter came back here in flat country last night, woke to 25 degrees this morning.
My mommy fried the best chicken I ever had bar none! When she fried chicken, she had electric skillets and cast iron skillets because it was a pretty big deal.She had to fry enough chicken for Cox’s Army as they say cause there were usually 20 people or more to show up to Sunday dinner. One day while I was in the Army, mommy said she and my sister Pearl cooked and cleaned with Pearl saying she felt really bad all day and worse as the day went. She finally went to the hospital and had a baby girl and no one knew she was expecting.As far as we know, she never saw a doctor. I was shocked my daddy took it so well. But anyway, to me the worst part of frying chicken is the greasy mess it makes so I don’t do it a lot. Murr would mug you for homemade fried chicken and I might myself. I bake a lot of yard bird-a lot. I like buying my meat non MRNA injected so it’s tough in my wallet. A full grown chicken off a farm and gutted, defeathered, etc costs about 25$ and that’s a lot. But since a pack of 6 breasts here is 22$ it’s looking like an option more and more. Give me some meat and I will track down some side dishes…l
My husband said they called fried chicken “the gospel bird” in his little town of Watha N.C.
Back when I was a child in the 50 and early 60’s, my maternal Granddaddy would killed two fat corn fed chickens almost every Saturday morning by wringing their necks. Grandmother would clean them and light a sheet of newspaper and burn off any fine feathers on them. She would then batter and fry them for Sunday dinner in a thick cast iron frying pan and hog lard rendered out from a hog they had killed. If the colonel could have cooked chicken that tasted that good he would have been a general! Most of their adult children would come to visit and eat dinner with them after Sunday morning church service. Any left over chicken would be left on the table and covered up with a white table cloth and ate before going back to church Sunday night. The cold chicken would have white spots on it from the cold lard grease. Granddaddy would not kill a chicken running loose in the yard, the chickens he killed to eat were kept in an above ground wire bottom and side coop and fed nothing but corn and water. The coop was large enough for them to stand up and to walk around. I now look back and think of this coop as death row. My mother in law could cook some mighty fine tasting grocery store bought chicken in her old black cast iron frying pan. I don’t remember my mother frying much chicken but could make some mighty good chicken or squirrel dumplings.
I love some good fried chicken, but I’m like you, I either burn it or it isn’t done.
My Mama could make great fried chicken and cathead biscuits and gravy. I sure miss those days.
besides my grandmothers fried chicken (she raised and butchered hundred leghorns every spring for eating on the rest of the year) the best fried chicken I have ever had was from a lady who worked for me when I had a care home for elderly. She rolled the chicken in self rising flour, used an electric skillet turned down low–she put the chicken in skillet and put the lid on it (my thoughts when I first saw this was that the chicken would never be crispy crunchy) once the chicken browned on the first side she turned it over and put the lid back on (again I thought that the lid would cause non crunchy chicken) well as I ate the chicken I had to eat my words…the chicken was crunchy and tender and actually tasted alot like my grandmas home raised fried chicken. mmmmm now I am hungry lol