Awesomebella Cooks- SOUTHERN FRIED CHICKEN!

Yup, I did it. I awesomely cooked some southern-style fried chicken--and I don't even EAT chicken!

I did follow a recipe on this one (this one, from food network's Paula Deen) as the whole taste testing thing doesn't work for me on meat (remember, I'm a vegetarian). And I did actually FOLLOW it! For real! (*slight changes made though. I used 12 chicken drumsticks, rather than cutting up a whole chicken, because that is what was in the freezer. And I added Ethiopian Berbere spice to the flour mixture because...we add it to everything now) Be proud of me!

I am not going to type up directions for you, as I actually followed Paula's, but I will show you what went on through picture documentation.

I took this (pepper, salt, garlic powder) 

 And seasoned this (mmmm salmonella...).

That got dipped in a mix of 4 eggs, hot water and hot sauce and then got shaken around in this (flour, berbere, and pepper)

Until it looked like this.

 

Those (in 2 batches, six at a time) went into this cauldron of 350* liquid (aka oil so hot could melt your Popsicle and anything else...). 

 Fried for 15ish minutes and turned into this!

Ha! Look, I'm a New England-dwelling vegetarian with southern, meat cooking skills! (and the meat consumers said they were most tasty!)

For the fun of it I also took these (vegan buffalo wings- what I call "Chickennotchicken"- which are normally pretty nasty and taste NOTHING like real buffalo wings) and breaded/fried them too.

 Then they looked like this and were MUCH improved! (though still were clearly not buffalo wings...)

All of that was served with mashed potatoes (see last weeks post on how I made 'em) and homemade (by not me, but Tia and Simenesh) dinner rolls.

Once again, a successful AWESOMEMONDAY!

I do have to say, there is a downside to deep frying (other than the obvious health reasons...). The whole house smelled like fried chicken. Maybe you consider that to be a good thing but...I also smelled like fried chicken. Every pore in my body has absorbed the aroma of that chickeny oil. And I DO NOT find that to be a good thing. Chicken frying was followed by much hair shampooing...just warning you.

But apparently the deliciousness was worth it. Once again my family wiped out all the food with no hope of left overs. I suppose sacrificing my clean, good-smelling hair was worth it.

What will Awesomebella cook next awesomemonday? Hmmm...I have an idea. And it might involve the "help" of my favorite British man, Jamie Oliver!!!! Check back next week to see for what!