Traditional fried chicken

Fried chicken the old-fashioned way. These are all thighs, because I like thighs. Plus they were on sale the day I went for milk. There were other things on sale too but I didn't care.

1) Brine, I included sugar, then after a few hours, soak in fresh water so the salt that was dragged inside the chicken flows back out to equalize with the soaking liquid after brining but leaving behind the extra moisture that crossed the cell membrane. The water stays equalized too by pressure on both sides of the cell membrane. The problem with all this is you can not taste as you go along because it's raw chicken and you'll die!

2) Dry

3) Season, but not salt.

4) Dust with seasoned flour, absent salt, I used habanero powder and pepper

5) Heat two cups of oil to 375°F, just enough to almost cover a single layer of chicken. Allow the heat to drop to 350°F, cook for 12 or so minutes turning infrequently. A splash guard is helpful at this point, then cover completely after the heavy steaming has ceased and turn down the heat (covered the heat tends to rise), continue cooking until internal temperature of the chicken reaches 180°F. Because you've brined the chicken, your margin for error is expanded slightly on the side of overcooking. For the second batch I was getting tired of frying chicken so I double layered it and moved them around a little more. It worked fine. The thing was covering them for the last half of cooking and the oily steam pretty much covers it. Mine got to internal temperature of 195°F, which is quite high and considered overdone, but they were perfectly desirably moist without having burned portions as the first batch did.

6) drain on paper towel or paper grocery bags. Serve immediately, or it gets soggy.

This beats the pants off of KFC that was pressure-cooked by children and which sits there forlornly waiting for someone to come along.