Fried chicken, round one.

My first attempt at frying chicken. 
I just recently read the book "The Help", and fried chicken was mentioned at least a dozen times.  I enjoyed the book, but was left with an insatiable desire for fried chicken.  So, I decided to put my apron on and get in the kitchen.  A very dear friend of mine gave me great cookbook (Pioneer Woman), so I went with her batter/frying method.  I decided to be very food-networkie and brine the chicken for 12 hours THEN soak it in buttermilk for 12hours.  The results:  Very tender, juicy chicken.  The only thing I will do differently next time is take the skin OFF first before battering.  I double battered to give it extra crunch, but this renders the skin useless.   Double battered, no skin, brine and buttermilk soaked is definitely the way to go.  Here are the pics...

  In case you are wondering, no I did not heat the crisco in the can.  I had it sitting there until I was ready to use it and just snapped the pic.  In the picture above, you can see the mashed potatoes and turnip greens, and corn bread.  I actually made the corn bread a few nights before, but my from scratch buttermilk biscuits didn't turn out as well as I would have liked.  Actually, I didn't like them at all.  Dry, flat, basically useless rounds of nothingness.  Here's the pic though.  At least they looked pretty on the plate.

The end result was fried chicken for two days in a row, turnip greens gone after day one, and a tray full of biscuits in the garbage.  We'll try those again another time.