Cook's Country

-"Cook's Country" is about more than just getting dinner on the table.

We're also fascinated by the people and stories behind the dishes.

We go inside kitchens in every corner of the country to learn how real people cook, and we look back through time to see how history influences the way we eat today.

We bring that inspiration back to our test kitchen so we can share it with you.

This is "Cook's Country."

Today on "Cook's Country," Christie makes lard-fried chicken, I share the story of Edna Lewis's famous version of the dish, Jack and Bridget taste regional potato chips, and Morgan bakes up blueberry biscuits.

That's all right here on "Cook's Country."

The practice of frying chicken in pork fat has been popular in Southern cooking for centuries, and there have been countless variations.

The first published recipe for fried chicken appeared in Mary Randolph's "The Virginia Housewife" in 1825.

In 2003, the great Edna Lewis partnered with Alabama-born chef Scott Peacock to publish "The Gift of Southern Cooking."

The book contains Lewis's famous recipe for Southern pan-fried chicken.

It blends fried chicken styles from both Virginia and Alabama.

The chicken is first brined and then soaked in buttermilk, a practice common in parts of Alabama.

Then Lewis adds her signature Virginia style by adding a bit of country ham cooked in butter to the frying lard.

The result is a fried chicken that's rich and savory.

At "Cook's Country," we continue this wonderful marriage of hog fat and chicken with our own recipe for lard-fried chicken.

-Frying meat in animal fat is one of the earliest forms of cooking because you don't need much.

You have the animal, which has the meat and the fat, and you have a big pot over a live fire.

Now, cooking in animal fat has fallen out of fashion in recent years, but we're back today because Christie's gonna show us how to make fried chicken in lard.

-[ Laughs ] That's right, Julia.

-I can't wait for this.

-Well, in many areas of the country, especially in the South and the Midwest, this method has really never fallen out of favor.

And the inspiration for this fried chicken recipe comes from Indiana.

It's a straightforward approach to frying chicken, and it gives us that deep, savory flavor that only cooking and frying in lard can give us.

-I'm all in.

-But before we can fry, we've got to start by breaking down our chicken.

So we need 3 pounds of chicken parts.

This is a 4-1/2-pound chicken, which will give us 3 pounds of parts.

-Yep, makes sense.

-Now, I like to start with a pretty dry chicken, so pat it nice and dry because it's not as slippery.

I like to take the wings off first, and I'm using my carving knife.

This is a really perfect knife to use for this because it's all about getting in the joints, between the joints, and separating there.

You shouldn't have a lot of cracking and crunching of bones.

There we go.

All right, now I'm gonna flip this over on the back, and I'm going to use my chef's knife now to cut through the skin above the thigh.

And then I'm gonna pop the hip bone out of joint and kind of skim the back to cut off the whole leg quarter.

All right, now we want to cut the backbone off, and that's when I just want to use my kitchen shears.

-Absolutely.

-And while I'm at it, I'm gonna cut off the rib cage, too.

To cut the breasts in half.

You could flip over and cut this way through the breast bone.

I like to cut from the underside... -Ah.

-...because the breastbone is really narrow on the top, but on the back, you kind of have a nice broad plate to work from.

And now these breasts are huge, so I'm gonna cut them in half.

But do you cut them right in half, or do you cheat a little bit?

-No!

One-third, two-thirds.

-Yes.

-Yeah, because there's the thick end, and then there's the skinny end, and you want them to kind of cook at the same rate.

-Right.

All right, so now we are almost there, but now we've got these big leg quarters, and we want to cut those into thighs and drumsticks.

You just have to follow the line of fat.

I like to wiggle the drumstick a little bit, too, and stick my finger in there to feel where that joint is.

-Aha!

That's another good tip.

-So find the joint and the line of fat, but it should come apart pretty easily.

Now, before we do anything else, we have to season these because a hallmark of this Indiana fried chicken recipe is this is not a lackadaisical salting and peppering.

We're gonna be aggressive with this.

-Okay.

-So I have 2 teaspoons of kosher salt.

I'm gonna sprinkle this all over.

And I have a whole tablespoon of pepper here.

-[ Laughs ] That's a -- That's more pepper than salt.

-It's -- It's a lot of pepper.

These will, you know, make you stand up and cheer.

-[ Laughs ] Okay.

I know what I'm in for now.

-All right, now we can start coating.

So this is a very simple, delicate flour coating.

We're not making a batter for this.

I have 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour.

And, actually, would you help me with this?

-Sure.

-So I -- in a far bowl, I have 1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder.

-Baking powder.

All right.

-Mm-hmm.

-And I have a tablespoon of kosher salt.

Want to give it a...?

-Sure.

-Sure.

We can work together on that.

-I like this.

-Yeah.

You stay clean.

I'll get dirty.

-[ Laughs ] Deal.

-All right, now, here's the process.

So working with one piece at a time... -Uh-huh.

-...first we're going to dredge it in the flour to kind of absorb some of that surface moisture... -Mm-hmm.

-...on the skin.

Shake off the excess.

Now, I have this mysterious bowl here.

It's 4 cups of water.

-Okay.

-And it's an important part in this whole recipe.

I will tell you in a moment.

So we're gonna give it a dunk, quickly wetting the flour that's there, and that's going to create some glue, and we'll put it back in the flour.

It's a more substantial coating than just flouring them, but it's not as much as if you added an egg or made a batter.

So it's kind of a nice in-between.

So, Julia, I'm just gonna keep dredging and dipping until I finish with the rest of the chicken, and then we'll put the whole plate in the refrigerator.

We're gonna let it chill for 30 minutes or up to 2 hours in order to give the coating a chance to adhere.

Julia, I have 2 pounds of lard that's heating up over medium-high heat in a six-quart Dutch oven.

And I'm looking for the lard to get up to 350 degrees.

-Standard frying temperature.

-Right.

But you'll notice this isn't a ton of lard.

And so it's kind of an interesting technique, and I'll show you what we're doing, but we're gonna put all of the chicken in at once, skin side down.

-Now, why skin side down?

-Because the oil's nice and hot right now, and it's going to cool as we add more chicken.

And so starting it with the hot oil is going to kind of jumpstart the rendering... -Aha.

-...of the fat.

But you want to try to have it on one layer so that all of the chicken is flush against the bottom of the pot.

And I want to keep the oil between 300 and 325 degrees.

And I'll adjust my flame, you know, to make sure that it stays there.

Now, we're gonna let this go for 10 minutes on this side.

But halfway through, after 5 minutes, I'm going to rotate the whole pot 180 degrees.

You know that some stovetops, your burners have hot spots?

-Oh, definitely.

-And all of this chicken is really close to the burners, and we don't want it to scorch.

We want to even out the cooking and accommodate any of those hot spots.

-Ooh, that's clever.

-Yeah.

So 5 minutes, we'll give it a turn.

-Okay.

-It's been 5 minutes, Julia, so I'm gonna carefully rotate the pot 180 degrees.

Five more minutes, Julia.

-Okay.

-It's been 10 minutes on this side, but I did rotate it after 5 minutes.

So now we can take a peek.

-I'm dying to see what it looks like.

Oh, it's beautiful.

-Isn't it?

So we'll let this cook a little bit longer until it's really golden brown.

And, of course, we want the chicken breasts to be 160 degrees, the thighs and the drumsticks to be 175.

And, you know, that's gonna take between 5 and 9 minutes for each of those pieces to get there.

-It's smelling really good, Christie.

-[ Laughs ] I think we gotta temp them.

-All right.

-It's time.

It's time.

So I'm gonna try a breast because that should be finished before the thighs and the drumsticks.

-Mm-hmm.

-161.

Perfect.

Now, I'm going to set this on triple layer of paper towels.

I only have over half of the wire rack.

There's still some grease attached, and we want to give it a chance to blot some of that before we move it aside.

So I'll let it go about 10 seconds on one side, blot the other side.

In the meantime, I'm gonna grab another piece of chicken.

All right, let's check those thighs.

176.

-On the nose.

-Can live with that.

Now we have to wait 10 minutes, and then we can dig in.

-Because those are rippin' hot.

-So hot.

-Christie, [laughs] it's beautiful.

It is absolutely the most beautiful fried chicken.

The hue of golden is perfection.

I'm gonna try a little of the dark meat.

I'm gonna have a thigh.

-Okay.

-And I'm gonna take a breast piece.

-All right, and I think I'll try a drumstick, and I will do a breast also.

-Man, this looks good.

Look how juicy that is.

That's incredible.

That coating is so hearty.

-And it's so well seasoned.

-Yeah, I was waiting for the big kick of pepper, but I'm not getting it.

It's not overpowering by any stretch.

It's just nicely seasoned.

-Mm-hmm.

When you can get it to taste this good with just two seasonings... -Mm-hmm.

-...it's so savory.

-Yeah!

Christie, [laughs] I can't stop eating this.

This is delicious.

Thank you.

So if you want to make lard-fried chicken, start by seasoning the chicken with a good amount of salt and ground black pepper, dip the chicken in water when breading, and rotate the pot during cooking.

From "Cook's Country," an incredible recipe for lard-fried chicken.

I love how you put it all in the pot at the one time.

-Right?

-That's good.

-Why monkey around?

Like, let's get in there, get out, and have some chicken.

-[ Chuckles ] -Jack says today we're tasting barbecue potato chips.

Yeah, you run to the kitchen.

So that's why I'm here.

Jack's gonna take me through regional barbecue potato chips, right?

-Yeah, but first I want to set this up as, this is your chance for potato chip redemption.

Remember last time we were on set here together tasting potato chips and you chose -- -Low-fat.

-This is such good news.

-No, no.

Is it low-fat?

-It is!

It's -- -Nooo!

-I see you'd almost forgotten that.

-Ugh.

Yes, on purpose.

-Yeah.

So the good news -- there's no low-fat here.

You're gonna have fun.

-Okay, good.

-So dig in.

Our colleague Kevin Pang actually tasted 30 brands of barbecue potato chips.

And he, rather than sourcing national brands -- that's what we typically do, right?

-Mm-hmm.

-We want to look for things that are widely available.

He said, "Let's find the obscure regional brands that we never write about."

-Mm-hmm.

-He actually asked folks on Twitter.

He got 473 replies.

-Yeah?

Passionate about regional barbecue potato chips.

-Yeah, and so we ordered 30 of them, and I brought 6 here for you.

-This is barbecue?

-Well, taste it.

-Okay.

-You tell me what you think.

Is that barbecue?

-Sure.

-[ Laughs ] The amount of spice is gonna be all over the place... -Yes.

-...as we're gonna see.

And there's a little bit -- you can tell the story by color to some extent, but some of them are really spice-forward and almost no potato.

-Mm-hmm.

-Others are much more potato-forward, and so that's a big thing in terms of flavor is how much potato you're getting, how much spice you're getting, within the spice, what's that mix?

They almost all have tomato powder, onion powder, garlic powder.

They have some sort of smoke in them.

-Mm-hmm.

-The last thing is the fat, the frying medium.

So some of these are with lard.

Some of them are with, you know, vegetable oils, cottonseed oil.

The other thing is texture.

So in the world of potato chips, there are two kinds of people.

We're kettle chip kind of people.

They're sliced thicker.

They are actually stirred with a rake as they cook so they fold over, so they turn out even thicker.

They need to cook longer in the oil.

And something happens to the starches.

The starches and the moisture actually kind of interact, and that makes them hard.

So they're not just crunchy.

They're loud... -Mm-hmm.

-...and they're hard.

Continuously fried, they're on a conveyor belt, and they are basically pulled through the oil.

They're sliced thinner, so they cook quicker.

-Right.

-And they're what I would call crispy rather than crunchy.

-Yep.

-They're lacy, almost kind of melt in your mouth.

So any initial impressions about what you're tasting so far?

Or any surprises?

-Big surprise, first, visually.

I had a hard time believing this is barbecue.

It's like Alabama white barbecue sauce is what they used here.

I mean, it's -- you don't expect this to actually taste like barbecue, but it does taste like something.

Some of these are very, very sweet, like candy sweet.

-Yeah, and I thought when I did this tasting that, like, the more spice, the more sweet.

-Mm-hmm.

-And it almost felt like it was an arms race with no winner.

-That's exactly right.

I have to say, none of these are bad.

-Yeah, I agree with you.

-This one, though, I would have to say, might be close to my least favorite.

But I still kind of like it.

But I don't know.

It just doesn't seem to me to have the right balance of spices in there.

Taste is just a little ordinary.

-That's the local chip, Massachusetts-based Wachusett.

-Okay.

-I thought it was kind of understated, was the word I wrote.

-Yeah.

-It's also very thin and delicate.

-Very thin and delicate.

Yes, gossamer-thin there.

More like a Lay's than, say, a Cape Cod potato chip.

-Yep.

So -- So the ones that -- -This one is an anomaly to me.

Like, I don't know what's going on here.

And I think I kind of like them because they're different.

-So this is one of the two Pennsylvania chips here in the lineup.

It's one that may have tallow in it.

So the label's a little unclear.

I actually thought it seemed kind of meaty.

-Yes.

-Yeah, it has a list of different fats.

-Well, Pennsylvania knows potatoes, I do know that.

-Yeah, so this chip here is a Michigan chip.

-It's a Michigan chip.

I don't know.

The smoky flavor, to me -- it tastes like bottled barbecue sauce, a little mesquitey.

Still not bad, though.

-No.

[ Chuckles ] -Don't throw these away.

All right, this one?

-This is Alaska.

It's actually made with a proprietary potato that grows in Alaska.

-It tastes potatoey.

-And what did you think of this brand?

-I actually like the balance of the spice to the potato.

Well, this was one of the ones that I could actually taste the potato more.

-Okay.

-Is that that proprietary Alaskan potato?

-Yeah.

-These chips are from Connecticut.

-Mm-hmm.

-It's obviously a kettle chip, as you can tell by all the folds in it.

-I quite like these.

Actually, I quite like -- there's a little bit sweet, so I think if I ate too many of them, that might start to catch up on me.

But I quite like them.

I like the texture a lot.

What did you think of these?

-Yeah, I thought they were sweet.

I thought also, the label says mesquite, and I really feel like you can taste the smoke on these.

-Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

These are way too sweet for me.

Still delicious.

And I think people that really, really like that sweet barbecue flavor would love those, but not my preference.

-Kevin's note on these was, "These are an 11 on every scale."

-Yeah.

-They were too sweet.

They were too spicy.

They're pretty bright.

-Very bright.

A little bit like barbecue candy.

-Yeah.

What's your favorite?

-I have two favorites.

-Okay.

-I think this is my favorite.

I have to say, this is my second favorite.

-Oh!

Oh!

-What the heck is going on?

And I think this is just me -- this is my punk-rock vote.

I just want to be different, but I could eat a lot of those.

-Well, we are in agreement, and we're not fighting at all.

Alaska chip company Grizzly, of course... -Oh.

-...Barbecue Potato Chips.

It's just got a great potato flavor.

And they're for grownups.

-They are for grownups.

You know, tough state, tough people.

Makes a good chip.

-Alaska, here we come.

-Alaska, here we come.

Loving it.

So if you want to learn more about all these chips, maybe try a few of your own, you can go to our website.

-Today I'm making a BLT salad.

Cook the bacon in a 12-inch nonstick skillet until crispy, then transfer to one side of a paper-towel-lined plate.

Then cook torn ciabatta in the leftover bacon fat until nice and crisp.

Drain the croutons next to the bacon on the paper-towel-lined plate.

Make the salad dressing by whisking together oil, mayonnaise, vinegar, mustard, garlic, salt, and pepper in a large bowl.

Combine tomatoes, salt, and pepper in a bowl and toss to combine.

Salting the tomatoes helps pull out some of their excess water.

Add some lettuce and torn basil leaves and the drained bacon and croutons to the dressing and toss to combine.

Finally, transfer the tomatoes to the salad, leaving their liquid behind, and gently toss it all together.

Dig in and enjoy.

-When you're getting into the world of baking, I always recommend taking up biscuits as a project.

You learn how to make a biscuit, you can make them fluffy or flat or flaky or just about anything, and you can switch up the flavors very easily.

Now, Morgan's here, and she's going to show us a great sweet biscuit that hails from the South.

-Yeah, so I'm gonna show you how to make a blueberry biscuit.

So I didn't want this to eat like a muffin.

I want it to eat like a flaky biscuit.

So it's really important to, like, start with the right ratio of dry ingredients.

-Okay.

-So here I have 3 cups of all-purpose flour.

And to that, I'm gonna add 1/2 cup of sugar.

There was a balance of trying to get these sweet, but not too sweet, so this is definitely a little bit more sugar than an average biscuit... -Right.

-...but not near as much as a muffin.

I have 2 teaspoons of baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda, and then 1 1/4 teaspoons of salt.

So I'm just gonna whisk this until it's nice and combined.

And what would a biscuit be without butter?

I have 10 tablespoons of chilled butter that I've cut up into half-inch pieces, and I'm just using unsalted butter.

I tend to bake with unsalted butter, just so you can control the salt.

-Right.

-Now I am gonna just get my hands in here... -Good.

-...and smash the butter.

So you just want to go in and just smash it between your hands and break it up into irregular pieces.

Here I have a cup and a half of blueberries.

So you can use frozen if you want.

We have instructions for that on our website.

-Okay, perfect.

-So I'm just gonna fold these in nicely and make sure they're totally incorporated.

With biscuits, you don't want to overmix it.

That can make a tough biscuit.

We don't want tough biscuits in here.

So I'm trying to get all the dry things together before I add any liquid, because that's when you start making tough biscuits.

-Right.

-Here I have 1 2/3 cup chilled buttermilk.

Fold this in gently.

Again, trying to be gentle here to avoid making them tough.

So I really don't want any flour streaks, but I don't want to overmix it at all.

Okay.

-Lovely.

So just until the little pockets of flour are gone.

-Yes.

Perfect.

So I'm gonna let this hang out for just a second and move on to our pan.

-Great.

-So I have an 8x8 baking pan here.

And the only thing to make these better would be more butter.

-Yes.

-I'm gonna brush just a tablespoon of melted butter all over the edge of this, and the edges of the biscuits are going to frizzle and fry in this butter.

-Mmm.

-So I will have nice, buttery edges all over these blueberry biscuits.

And now the batter.

So I'm just gonna press this out, make sure it's nice and even.

One more thing -- so I have a bench scraper, and I'm gonna spray it with nonstick cooking spray.

So I'm gonna just go ahead and actually score where my biscuits are gonna be.

-Oh.

Pre-stamping.

-Pre-stamping.

This will make it easier to cut them apart at the end.

It'll kind of give me some guidelines on where my biscuits are.

-Very nice.

Virginia Willis is a Southern cookbook author.

She explained that biscuits are like people, and they rise better together.

So I always picture that when I bake these biscuits.

-Instead of stamping them and having them set apart, they bake better together.

You're right.

-Also, when you roll out biscuits and you have to re-stamp and re-roll them, you can risk overworking the dough, and you can make them a little more tough.

So I'm just gonna bake these in a 400-degree oven.

It's gonna take about 40 minutes.

I'm gonna check them with a paring knife when they're done, and it should come out clean, and they should be nice and golden by then.

-Ah!

Look at that crust.

-So delicious.

-Mmm!

-It smells so buttery.

-It smells unbelievable.

I will get the door.

-Thank you.

Thank you.

-[ Chuckles ] -Okay, so I do want to check these because they look nice and golden.

But I also want to go in with a paring knife.

See?

Nice and clean.

-No crumbs attached.

-No crumbs attached.

-That's what we want.

-So I do need to let these cool five more minutes before I can turn them out.

-Okay.

-And while I do that, I'm just gonna make a little more zhuzh to dress them up.

-Love it.

-So I've got 2 tablespoons of butter, a tablespoon of honey, and just a little pinch of salt.

So we're gonna make... -Honey butter.

-...honey butter.

So I'm just gonna microwave this until the butter's melted.

It'll take about 30 seconds.

-Okay.

-Okay, so it's been 5 minutes and I'm gonna flip these out, so I'm just gonna put another wire rack on top of them.

Just make it nice and easy on myself.

-Whoo!

Cake.

-Cake, and hold on a second.

Wait for it.

Biscuit!

-Biscuit!

-And... -Oh, you can really smell it once it comes out of the pan.

Oh, yeah.

-A little glisten, a little shine.

-Ah!

-I love this, because now when you eat this, if you get this little bit, you get, like, a salty, sweet honey butter bite.

-All the good words.

-All the good words.

-Yes.

Oh, that's beautiful.

-All the magical things.

-Ah!

-And you want to make sure to go ahead and use all of this.

If it feels like too much, that's a good thing.

-Oh, gorgeous.

-Okay.

Almost time to eat.

It's a little doughy inside right now.

We just have to let it cool 10 more minutes.

-Those look beautiful.

And the aroma here in the kitchen?

Fresh biscuits, nothing better.

-Yes.

Thank you so much.

I'm very excited.

So it's been our 10 minutes.

We made ourselves these helpful little lines earlier.

It's like color within the lines.

-Very smart.

-Cut within the lines.

I'll give you this guy.

This is nice and big.

-Lovely.

-Fluffy.

-Can we just marvel at the size of these for a moment?

-I don't skimp on my biscuits.

-That is some healthy-size biscuit there.

-[ Chuckles ] Yes.

-I am very appreciative.

-There's a lot of blueberries in here, too.

I'm making sure you're getting your antioxidants.

I mean, biscuits are good for the soul.

-All right.

Mmm!

So soft.

-Yeah, they're buttery, they're rich, they've got that nice little salty-sweet thing going on.

-That's it.

They're not too sweet.

They're not dessert.

-No.

I want this to be like a savory biscuit, but also still balanced, sweet, have the blueberries come through.

-Oh, and that top -- that craggy, crisp top.

These are biscuit heaven.

You should open up a place, sell these, and call it Biscuit Heaven.

-I like that.

Great idea.

-So you're definitely gonna want to make these biscuits at home.

-Smash cold butter into a flour mixture.

Use the pat-in-the-pan biscuit method to shape the dough, and brush on lots of honey butter for a sweet glaze.

So from "Cook's Country," biscuit heaven on a plate.

It's the all-time great, flakiest blueberry biscuits.

You can get this recipe and all the recipes from this season, along with product reviews and select episodes.

They're all on our website.

That's CooksCountry.com/tv.