The Best Fried Chicken recipe starts with farm raised chickens

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I am often asked about the best way to cook our chicken so that the wonderful taste doesn’t get lost in the ingredient list. The best answer is to just relax and use your favorite recipes- but there are a couple of things to keep in mind to get the best results.

One of the first things that people notice if they choose the Amish Ranger chicken is that the meat is darker. It is also denser, and the pieces of meat are usually larger than what you may be used to cooking.

That being said, when cooking this meat, go for a little longer cooking time and a lower temperature. Personally, I prefer to brine my poultry for a couple of hours before cooking so it stays moist and tender.

We are big fried chicken fans here at the ranch. I recently discovered a great recipe by Tyler Florence called the Ultimate Fried Chicken Recipe. He starts by brining the chicken for 2 hours and goes on from there. The results are fabulous!

Related Articles

• Thomas Keller’s Fried Chicken Recipe (averagebetty.com)
• Recipe makeover: Lemon-ginger fried chicken (cnn.com)
• Healthy Chicken Adobo with Quinoa (thismamacooks.com)

Note: If you look at Thomas Keller’s recipe above, he calls for a smaller younger chicken than you usually find. We can supply the chickens at that age for you if you can let us know in advance!

1001 ways to quickly prepare healthy chicken meals

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Ok- that should have got your attention.

I really wasn’t planning on typing out 1000 recipes, more like sharing some of my tricks for getting good food onto the table fast. What to do with that tasty free range bird you brought home after you exhaust the usual options of roasting or bbq’ing?

We (for obvious reasons) eat a lot of chicken here on the ranch. I prepare all the usuals- picatta, fried, sweet and sour, pot pie, etc. But being super busy (we have no outside help as we are just too small an operation to hire anyone- yet) my all time favorite way to cook my chickens is to poach a couple of birds and freeze the cooked meat in little pouches that will thaw quickly when needed.

I was pleased to see an article in the San Francisco Chronicle recently on the very subject! It explains the poaching process and gives several delicious ways to use the bounty when cooked.

They point out that a 5 pound chicken makes up at least 2 pounds of cooked meat once you take away the bones and the skin. Because there are normally only the two of us for dinner, that will make a generous 4-5 meals.

See the Poached Chicken master recipe (included in the above article) that can be used for many types of recipes. This can easily be adapted for other uses by leaving out the ginger and adding vegetables or herbs of your choice.

I also love the tip for making Uncle Yuen’s Chicken Sauce:

Combine 2 parts double strength chicken broth (the extra water is boiled off at the end of the chicken poaching time)

Add 1 part Oyster Sauce
A dash of pepper
A drop or two of toasted sesame oil

A recipe for summer vegetable salad with poached chicken, Banh Mi-Style Chicken Sandwiches and Glass Noodles with Napa Cabbage and Poached Chicken is also included for you to try. Thanks so much to Lynne Char Bennett

Homestyle Green Chile Chicken Enchiladas

The next page of the newspaper brought yet another great use for poached chicken from the Green Chile Kitchen in San Fran (leave out the ginger for this one). If you don’t have access to fresh new mexico or anaheim chiles, go ahead and substitute canned ones.

Thanks Tilde Herrera for the great article!

Well that is 4 recipes to get you started but you won’t need to look very hard to find the other nine hundred something more. My favorite resource when I get stuck is my 1950 something edition of the Betty Crocker cookbook. It has so many good uses for “leftover” chicken (try the chicken ala king over toast points for true comfort food).