Nashville Style Hot Chicken

November17

If you love spicy food, I mean, really, really LOVE all things fiery and flavorful, then you’re ready for Nashville Style Hot Chicken.

What makes Nashville Style Hot Chicken so unique is the “sauce” that is brushed, dipped or poured over the chicken just before serving.

I’m telling you, this atomic fried chicken is guaranteed to burn your face off. Ah, the eye-watering pain. The mouth-burning agony. It hurts (and tastes) so good.

Yes, there are a lot of spicy fried chicken recipes out there. But what makes Nashville Style Hot Chicken so unique is the “sauce” that is brushed, dipped or poured over the chicken just before serving. That sauce is so delicious; you have to serve it with a slice or two of good old-fashioned white bread to soak up all the drippy goodness.

Oh, and you definitely need some good pickles to gussy-up the plate. That’s part of the presentation. You don’t want to go to all the trouble of making Nashville Style Hot Chicken and leave off a traditional garnish!

Several (now famous) places in Nashville have been serving Hot Chicken for decades. But as we all know, it only takes one hip website or famous food show star to get the rest of the country clamoring for the next BIG THING RIGHT NOW.

But what in the world is Nashville Style Hot Chicken anyway? How it came into being is absolutely fascinating, but, then again, I love food history and how it defines our culture, and in this case, a city.

Give a read to Dr. Rachel Martin’s post on the website The Bitter Southerner to understand how Nashville’s so-called signature dish stayed hidden in plain sight for so long before exploding into the mainstream.

What makes Nashville Style Hot Chicken so unique is the “sauce” that is brushed, dipped or poured over the chicken just before serving.

Hattie B’s in Nashville, which offers five heat levels, including “Shut the Cluck Up”, inspired my Nashville Style Hot Chicken recipe. I’ve changed it a bit by adding some spices to the flour. Like Hattie B’s recipe, I dredge the chicken pieces (breasts, thighs and legs only) twice in the flour before frying.

But I don’t add quite as much cayenne pepper as Hattie B’s because, well, I may be a little high strung, but I’m not crazy.

Read this recipe all the way through before you begin. I just heard you gasp. That’s right, one of the ingredients in the secret sauce is one cup of the hot oil from the skillet where the chicken is fried.

But, like I always say, you don’t eat like this every day, and I know how much you love fried chicken!

What makes Nashville Style Hot Chicken so unique is the “sauce” that is brushed, dipped or poured over the chicken just before serving.


Simple Irish Soda Bread

March13

Simple Irish Soda Bread

Recipes for real honest-to-goodness Irish Soda Bread (like those you’d find in an Irish cookbook) have only four ingredients: flour, baking soda, salt and buttermilk.

Irish Soda Bread in this country tends to have all kinds of fancy stuff thrown in, like dried fruit, seeds, nuts and even chocolate chips (I’m not kidding). I’m not judging, but that’s a quick bread, not Irish Soda Bread.

This Irish Soda Bread leans more toward the classic recipe, but with a little brown sugar thrown in. Buying the right flour helps, too, which keeps the bread tender inside the very crunchy crust.

If you leave out the add-ins, this makes a terrific all-purpose bread. Smear it with jam and butter or use it to make deliciously hearty sandwiches.

As in life, keeping it simple and honest is the best recipe.


Skillet Fried Chicken

January23

Must be the weather. Mama’s been seeing a lot of fried chicken recipes lately… and they all look fabulous.

Check out the January 2012 cover of  bon appétit magazine. A woman sitting next to me on the train was reading it, so I hit the newsstand as soon as the train pulled into the station.

Funny thing… the recipe is almost EXACTLY like my recipe. But the magazine offers up some really excellent tips that guarantee crisp and crunchy chicken.

GP was also hypnotized by the magazine’s cover. “THAT’s what I want for my birthday dinner,” he announced. So, since everyone in the fam gets to pick his or her birthday dinner, that’s what I made: Skillet Fried Chicken inspired by bon appétit.

I already know what you’re thinking:
1. It’s too greasy. No, if the oil is the proper temperature, it’s not greasy at all.
2. It’s too fattening. This is a special occasion. We’re not eating like this everyday.
3. It’s too messy. Like any cooking project, if you are organized, you can control the chaos.
4. It takes too much time. Yes, yes it does. This is not a 15 second microwave burrito. But in order to create enchantment, you have to invest a little bit of time (and a little bit of yourself!).

Really good Skillet Fried Chicken does take a little work, but oh my goodness is it worth it!

 

 

 

 

 

“Help” Yourself to Some Caramel Cake

August11

“The Help” made me hungry.

Y’all know I grew up in the South and even though my roots are Latina I still love the straight-forward simplicity of southern cuisine. What you see is what you get. Not a lot of nuance here (except in barbecue). Fried chicken is crisp and juicy. Peach pie tastes like peaches.

I was reminded of just how much I miss southern cooking while reading “The Help,” by Kathryn Stockett. As far as southern cooking goes, this book is a page-turner.

I began feeling hungry on page three, with Aibileen’s chicken salad. Even though the book doesn’t say, I know exactly how she made that chicken salad. White breast meat, hand chopped into tiny cubes. Celery, mayo and salt. No onions. No pickles. Chilled.

Deviled eggs on page six. Pristine white halves of eggs filled with a fluffy bright yellow yolk mixture of prepared mustard, mayo, a tiny bit of sweet pickle relish, salt and pepper. Aibileen probably sprinkled a little paprika on top to make it a kinda fancy, since she was serving it at a bridge club luncheon.

The next page is ham sandwiches. I know they weren’t slapped together with packaged ham. These are delicate bite-size sandwiches made with (I’ll bet) home roasted ham on crust-less white bread with a smidge of mayo to hold the whole thing together.

But it was two words on page eight that brought a rush of childhood food memories flooding back: caramel cake. I hadn’t had caramel cake since I was a kid on a family vacation in the Ozarks. I loved that vacation for two reasons: Papa Daddy took me fishing with him before the sun was up, and I had my first bite of a delicate, sweet piece of heaven called caramel cake.

As you read “The Help,” you’ll find other classic southern food gems, like what’s growing in the gardens (eggplant, okra, gourds, tomatoes, turnip greens) and that Crisco is “the most important invention in the kitchen since jarred mayonnaise.”

Two things didn’t whet my appetite: A poke salad (which is made from pokeweed and is extremely poisonous unless you know exactly how to prepare it) and Minny’s special chocolate pie for Miss Hilly… and that’s all I’m going to say about that (I don’t want to spoil your reading pleasure).

I’ve always “cooked what I’m reading,” whether it be Indian writer Anuradha Roy’s “An Atlas of Impossible Longing,” or David McCullough’s “The Greater Journey, Americans in Paris.” But “The Help” was special because it brought back a rush of childhood food memories. But I must confess, “The Help” didn’t help Mama stay on her diet. No sireee….



Hi…
I’m Christina Chavez

I was a TV journalist for many years, but with a house full of kids I decided to come off the road, go to culinary school and follow my passion for cooking. Mama’s High Strung is all about food… everything from creative recipe ideas to some really cool kitchen gadgets and cooking tips. I live in Chicago, but I love to travel and write about my food discoveries! You can reach me by email: mamashighstrung@gmail.com