On Sunday night I made fried chicken using a recipe similar to this one from Cooks Illustrated, collards and hush puppies from this site. Instead of the ham hocks, I used a pound of prosciutto that mario brothers look alikes Cascioppo brothers sold to me for 5 dollars, because they were out of ham hocks. That turned out pretty good. I boiled the prosciutto for an hour and a half before adding the collards, so it was falling apart when we ate it. The hush puppies also turned out moist and melty, as I’m sure using a teaspoon of bacon fat didn’t hurt that.
The chicken was another story. I soaked it in a buttermilk brine for 40 minutes, rather than the 2 hours recommended by Cooks Illustrated. Then I made the mistake of putting too many pieces into the deep fryer at once. The temperature did not stay at the requisite 325, but fell to 225 rather quickly as I dropped the thigh in the fryer. Next time I’ll do the slow but effective one piece at a time maneuver, or get an outdoor deep fryer.