Directions: |
Directions:Go out into your barnyard and select a nice fat hen. . . . well, we’ll skip that part. Linda remembers helping Grandma Vera pull the insides out of the chicken, when she was still young enough not to think it was “yucky.”
Rinse in water the chicken pieces you plan to fry. Don’t remove skin.
Dredge them in flour (on a piece of waxed paper right next to the stove). Salt and pepper each piece. Brown on all sides in a heavy pan, in butter (mixed, if possible, with a little bacon grease)
Put all the pieces in a 9 x 13” pan with a couple of tablespoons of water. Cover pan closely with tinfoil. Bake at 250 degrees for at least an hour, until the meat is almost falling off the bones. Remove tinfoil, raise heat to 325 and brown for about 15 minutes. |
Personal
Notes: |
Personal
Notes: This is another recipe that’s never been written down before, but we’re pretty sure we remember how this is done. (Why don’t we make real fried chicken dinners anymore?)
For a chicken dinner, Grandma Vera’s menu would also include mashed potatoes, fresh string beans or frozen baby corn (from her garden), vine-ripened tomatoes sliced with sweet red onions and dressed with a sweet French dressing (recipe given in "Sauces" section). She would have soft white dinner rolls, butter, and homemade frozen boysenberry jam. Dessert would be the biggest slice of pie you ever saw—Gravenstein apple, boysenberry, apricot, or Meyer lemon meringue. Grandma Vera would set her table with a white cloth in the dining room with the big window looking out on her three cherished birch trees.
Sometimes it was just Fern, Elwood, and the kids (Rick, Susan, and Linda) at the table with Gram and Gramps. In that case, she would use her old standby lace tablecloth. Sometimes it would be everybody—Elwood, Don, and Dick, and their families. Somehow there would be room for all of us. (Grandma Vera never sat down until later.) After dinner, the ladies would do dishes together and visit, while the men would take a nap in the living room chairs or listen to Grandpa lecture about politics until it was time for the uncles to go home to milk cows. Often, they would come back before evening church for a light supper of rye bread with butter and boysenberry jelly, Tillamook cheddar cheese, chocolate cake or pepparkakor, all served with Grandma Vera’s famously weak—but very tasty--coffee.
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This recipe for Grandma Vera’s Fried Chicken is from