Before this fried chicken, I’d made one recipe out of Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc cookbook.
It was his chicken pot pie recipe, funny enough. You may recall that pot pie is Daniel’s favorite, so of course I had to try it. There were things involved like boiling carrots, celery, and potatoes in separate pots with exactly 8 peppercorns in each … things I would never ordinarily do – but I did, because Thomas Keller said so.
It sounds fussy, and it probably is, but that’s not what Thomas Keller’s all about. What he is about is precise cooking methods in an effort to bring every ingredient to its very best possible potential. And while I can’t say that that chicken pot pie was the best I’ve ever made – my heart still belongs to Ina on that one – I am proud to say that this is the best fried chicken I’ve ever made.
It’s also the only fried chicken I’ve ever made.
But, allow me to say this: I can’t imagine ever making fried chicken another way. How ’bout that statement … bold enough for you?
In other news, this chicken made me do a happy dance. And … it’s on video. You can now officially watch me do a happy dance in my kitchen – it’s only fair, it does happen often enough that you fully deserve to see it – and I can now officially be embarrassed.
I kid. Lord knows it’s gonna take more than that to ruffle these feathers!
