Lemon Fried Chicken and Garlic Baked Frites

In the first picture are the fries…I’ve never made these before, I just kind of winged it but man they came out good. Below them is an old classic. I have made this lemon chicken more times than I can count…they are so good Calvin willingly eats them without buffalo sauce. I swear.

In the process of writing up some of my recipes I’m going to make sure to tell you which items are essential and which ones you can skimp on, substitute or do without entirely. Most of the measurements are approximate because I have a bad habit of not measuring anything. I’m pretty good at eyeballing it.
(By the way, did you notice the way I just verbed the noun eyeball? I love verbing nouns. William Shakespeare invented the word ‘eyeball’. Before he put it in A Midsummers Night Dream the word can’t be found in any written form. Just thought you should know.)

Lemon Fried Chicken

I started making this one for Calvin a few years ago as an antidote to the chicken strips he was always begging for. What is it with kids and the chicken strips? Instead of making separate meals for both of us I decided to make chicken strips we could both enjoy. I got the idea from a recipe for a lemon chicken and arugula sandwich I read about at some restaurant. I know kids pretty well and I knew arugula wasn’t going to fly. However, the idea of marinating the chicken in lemon juice before frying it struck me as a pretty good one.
About the cut of chicken to use. 2 words: boneless, skinless. You can use nearly any piece of chicken you want. My preference is to take boneless skinless breasts, fillet them thinly and then cut them into strips. Second choice would be to just buy the tenderloins. It’s more expensive and it has that pesky little tendon that I don’t care for…but they are pretty much already the size you want. Third choice would be the thighs. Here we go.

Ingredients:

4-6 lbs chicken (serves 4-6…possibly with leftovers)
3-4 cups flour/breadcrumbs/panko/ cornstarch etc.
2-4 table spoons various herbs/spices (don’t worry, I’ll explain)
1-2 lemons depending on size of the lemons and how much chicken you are using

Trim as much fat from the chicken as possible and set aside. In a large bowl squeeze your lemon juice making sure to not get any seeds in the bowl. Place the chicken in the bowl and mix it thoroughly making sure that all the chicken gets coated. Let it marinate for 30 minutes to an hour. It won’t need more time than that because the acids in the lemon juice combined with the fact that these are fairly thin cuts of meat lets the flavor permeate pretty quickly.
While the chicken marinates make your breading. I use whatever I have on hand. I’m being kind of vague on this point because breading isn’t super complicated. A couple cups of flour, a cup of bread crumbs, a half cup of cornstarch and whatever spices strikes my fancy is how I usually roll. I like to generally put a ratio of 1 tablespoon of spices to 1 cup of flour. I usually put in dry ranch, fresh cracked pepper, garlic salt and a little chili powder.
In a saute pan heat up some oil. (I usually use olive oil) It should be 1/2 as deep as the thickness of your chicken. The oil doesn’t need to be terribly hot because it’s going to be shallow and the chicken is fairly thin. The chicken should fry immediately when you put it into the oil but not to the point of making it hard to put the other pieces in. (see what I mean about eyeballing it? Sorry, I can’t give you an exact temperature)
Coat your chicken in your breading and lightly fry until golden brown on each side. Tamp excess oil off with paper towels.
So there you have it. Crispy on the outside, tender and lemony on the inside. It shouldn’t need any sauce to go with it but don’t be offended if less developed palates than yours put ranch or barbeque on it. They just don’t know any better.

Garlic Oven Fries
I wanted some potatoes to go with the chicken. We already have fried chicken so I didn’t want to make my homemade french fries. I can only take so much fried food in one sitting. I remembered seeing something similar to this online but I couldn’t find the recipe…so I improvised.

Ingredients:
6 - 10 russet potatoes (they vary in size…the sliced potatoes should fill a good sized mixing bowl)
1/2 - 3/4 cup spices ( I used dry ranch, garlic powder, garlic-herb mix and fresh ground black pepper)
1 cup olive oil

Pre heat your oven to 400 degrees. Slice the un-peeled potatoes into 1 inch wide wedges. Place the potatoes in a mixing bowl and rinse thoroughly, it should take you filling the bowl and agitating it 3 or 4 times for the water to clear. Once you have rinsed off all the starch let the wedges sit in a bowl of water until you are ready to cook them. ( this is a step you really don’t want to skip. Trust me, when it comes time to remove them from the pan you will be thanking me) Mix together your spices. I used garlic powder, dry ranch, garlic herb mix and fresh cracked pepper. I try to make these recipes as simple as possible to follow using stuff you should already have on hand: black pepper, garlic salt or powder and dry ranch.
(You really should have dry ranch on hand. This is a magical ingredient that makes flavors combine better. Trust me, almost nothing that I recommend that you add this to will taste like ranch…but people will give you a gratifying “what is in this?” quite frequently. This is a family secret which I feel comfortable imparting here because, really, who reads the internet? )
I went pretty heavy on the powdered garlic. If you use garlic salt you most likely won’t have to salt them when they are done.
Place the potatoes in a large baking dish and coat with the oil and spices. Mix the whole mess together so that the oil and spices are distributed evenly. Avoid overlapping the potatoes as much as possible, use 2 pans if you have to. Place in your preheated oven, set your timer for 20 minutes and forget about them. At 20 minutes pull the pans out and with a spatula flip all the wedges to the other side. I get all ocd and make sure every slice cooks on both sides. Whether you do this is up to you, it’s not essential. If you have a convection oven (like I do…go ahead and take a second to hate on me) cook these using the convection feature and you are almost guaranteed even cooking. You will need to cook them another 15-20 minutes until they are golden brown. You saw the picture, you know what I’m talking about. Are those not some pretty potatoes?
When they are done, if they are a little light on flavor, toss them with the olive oil that has settled in the pan and some coarse salt.
These are pretty straight forward and the cooking time gives you time to attend to other dishes without having to babysit more than one course. Serve with burgers, steaks, lamb chops,breakfast…go crazy. Call them Pommes Frites Au Ail and serve with Steak Au Poivre. If someone tries to eat them with ketchup, resist the urge to take the plate away from them.
These things will pair with so many dishes and nobody will ever object. I assure you.

Caper Shallot Mayonaise

There is a theater in Portland called the Bagdad (http://www.mcmenamins.com/index.php?loc=9&id=176)
You can go watch movies and drink great beer and eat pizza. There are a few other theaters that have adopted this concept.
Hello, Alamo Draft House, I see you there in Austin.
But I am pretty sure the Bagdad , if not the original, is a progenitor.
It has a restaurant up front with maybe 60 seats inside and another 20 along the sidewalk.
The restaurant menu is Pacific Northwest pub food. They also have good pizzas.
A secret that regulars know: you can only get pizza in the theater, but you can take stuff from the restaurant into the theater.
So.
If you want the chilled artichoke with caper mayo in the theater? Walk over to the restaurant and get yourself one and then walk your happy ass back to your seat and watch the movie.
I first saw Pulp Fiction there. I drank a Hammerhead Ale and had a slice of pepperoni mushroom pizza and a chilled artichoke with caper mayo. As Pharrell would say? Cot Damn!
So why am I talking about the Bagdad?
I stole their caper mayo and made it better and I'm going to give you the recipe.
I added shallots and garlic and lemon. ( and a few other things...I'll get to that I assure you)
I'm not going to try and act like this is all mine...however, I am pretty sure my version is more complex, has more depth.
Anyway, it's served with artichokes but whatever you have left over makes for awesome tunafish salad. Add some finely diced dill pickle and the mayo to a can of tuna.
Oh.... a word about artichokes? Did you ever stop to wonder who first had the idea to steam and eat this thing? Seriously, there is nothing about the artichoke that makes you want to eat it at first glance.
I have 2 theories:
1) it was a dare or a bet...some asshole said to his buddy, "man, I'll eat anything" so his friend broke out an artichoke, "eat this motherfucker!"
2) very, very poor people cooked anything non-lethal and ate it. It's the Anthony Bourdain principle. He has talked about how some of the best recipes in the world come from poverty. Do you think people ate snails out of choice? No they had nothing else.
Anyway. So here it is...
I don't know that I have a single recipe that you must follow to the letter so if you like one ingredient more than another feel free to fudge the amounts...just don't blame me if you don't like the results..you're the one that fucked with my recipe.

1 & 1/2 to 2 cups mayo (depending on the mayo you use and how rich or bland you need your dip)
1 small shallot bulb (maybe even just a half, this is strong stuff)
1 medium to large garlic clove (So, just how much do you like garlic? Act accordingly. If you want 2 bulbs, do it. It won't ruin this dish. Just make sure you have mints handy.)
1-2 lemon slices squeezed. (The freshest, best lemons you can find, if Meyers are at hand go there. If you have a tree in your backyard? God bless you, you lucky devil, pick the fattest juiciest bastard you can.)
A pinch or more of dry ranch dressing. (I know, how did this guy get to the party? Trust me, dry ranch has a magical quality that unifies recipes. It somehow makes flavors coalesce faster...if I thought y'all could handle it I would actually replace this with MSG, it has the same effect...but the propaganda machine has killed MSG. We'll get to that later..Trust me on the dry ranch shit though.)
Some fresh ground pepper...maybe some chili flakes?
Capers!
Hey, this is the one we have all been waiting for.
2-3 small handfuls of brined capers (drained)

Ok lets make this thing.

First the capers.
Scoop out a small handful from the jar. When you squeeze it out it should be the equivalent of ...lets say 2 or 3 pieces of chewing gum? So you get your small handful, rinse water through your hand, squeeze it, rinse water through that, squeeze it, rinse again and squeeze.
That's one handful rinsed.
You need 2 or 3.
Set that aside.
Now, on your cutting board...put the garlic, shallots....dice the hell out of that.Throw down the capers..dice a little more. (you want the capers a little coarser)
Once it is all finely diced, marinate it in the lemon juice.
Not long, but you want a little bit of flavor marriage... maybe 10-20 minutes. Acid breakdown and all that jazz.
Now take your mayo and mix it all together. Grind 5 or 6 revolutions some fresh pepper. Toss those few pinches of Ranch.
Now...
Here is where I need you to use discretion.
Does it seem like it's too chunky? A bit more mayo.
Kinda bland? More garlic or shallots.
Not enough bass? Not funky enough for you?
More capers.

Postscript:
Lets talk about the Mayo.
Your favorite mainstream brand will be just fine.
But, I recently picked up some all natural Wild Oats mayo at Whole Foods...
Wow.
I'm not a huge fan of mayonnaise but this stuff is the bomb.
I can't tell you how different this made the dip...
I had an in-law that hated mayo because she hated eggs. I know eggs are a major component of mayo but I never tasted eggs in mayo...until I bought this Whole Foods stuff...
It is very eggy, very rich, with a mustard undertone to it.(I checked the ingredients, there is mustard in it).
It added another dimension to the dip, infinitely richer and more complex.
Turns out not all mayonnaise is created equal.
(I know that it should read 'equally' because it's an adverb. But it's a play on the line from the constitution and I don't really feel like I am quite at the point where I can edit the constitution)