Family Dinner with JP

  The first time I tried out this recipe for Nashville Hot Chicken, mistakes were made. So on the front end, please DO NOT use all of the spicy sauce that represents the final step of the recipe. Spicy buttle will ensue. I got this recipe from an old friend, Michelle, who lives in Nashville and who is the type of friend who knows everyone at every restaurant in town. As such, she knows all the secrets, and was kind enough to share them with me. This is the most authentic NHC you can get outside of Nashville itself! I highly recommend making your own pickles and white bread to go along with your hot chicken. And get a wonderful pickled hot pepper on the side. Make some mac and cheese or simple braised greens like collard greens or kale. This is a wholesome, stick to your ribs kind of recipe, and not what one would consider health food. But you don't come to the blog for health food, now do you? I made it one the stream using boneless, skin-on chicken thighs, but you can really use a...

Given that two of the most popular recipes I've posted on the blog are the pickles and the fried chicken recipes, in hindsight this post seems almost inevitable. But no, yet again I turn to the pages of Bon Appetit for inspiration and recipe.  This pickle-brined fried chicken is a signature dish at Rose's Luxury, recently named the best new restaurant in the United States by Bon Appetit (woooo go DC!), and who am I to disagree? Pickles? Fried chicken? Yes please! So I made this once, and my friend Jess made it once as well. We compared some notes on the process, and in the end, I am adapting the recipe just slightly. Here's a statement I never thought I would make: go with chicken breast instead of thighs. I think this is an issue of expectation - when I bit into the amazing fried chicken, I wanted it to be like a chicken tender - juicy white meat. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't like sipping a diet coke that turns out to be an iced tea. But I think I like my b...

Fried chicken is one of those inexplicable things in the universe - the general rules of culinary mastery don't necessarily apply. While delicious fresh, why is it actually better after a night in the fridge? Why is Royal Farms fried chicken better than anything I've ever paid for at an actual restaurant? Why is the drumstick (handle chicken, according to some kids I know) the absolute most desirable piece of the bird? And why is a 12 pack of drumksticks the cheapest pack of chicken you can buy, while boneless, skinless, bland-ass chicken breast is the most? Fried chicken isn't something we made at home growing up (even though we had a Fry Daddy). It wasn't until I received the Ad Hoc cookbook one year that my friends Tim and Kate told me I HAD to try the fried chicken recipe. Since I first made it, I've scaled it down and also made some slight changes (example: hot sauce in the buttermilk). I like this recipe. I won't make any claims that it's the bes...