SC - Fried/fricaseed chicken and Platina- semi OOP

[LYN M PARKINSON]

Phlip, 


Here's a mish-mosh for you, and I was too young to sort out the
attributes.  I'm from a Northern family, with Scots and Germans, among
others, in my ancestry.  Dad was stationed in Virginia a lot, we had an
excellent cook, and a good bit of Southern cooking finds its way on to
the ancestral table.  Don't know whether it came from Grandmother,
Mother, Berneice, or where.  Found my Great-great-Grandmother's cookbook
lately, and now I know why we do certain things.

A fricasee is differentiated from a fry by having only a little cooking
liquid--oil/butter, (actually, we use bacon drippings) but some
additional liquid as well.  The heavy cast iron lid is put over the meat
once it is well browned.  The heat is turned down, and the steam cooks
the fricasee.  The meat gets turned several times, and prodded with a
2-pronged fork, and the crusty bits scraped off the bottom of the pan if
the liquid is cooking away.  Perhaps the steam makes the original cooking
liquid--we watch, and add water to the chicken if it's cooking too fast
or drying out.  With the beef, the liquid is tomato juice.  With a Swiss
steak, you get the coating--flour from North beaten or hammered in by
Mother, but Berneice used a batter, I think.  The coating on the meat,
when done, is not a crispy crust, but a soft--I don't have a word for it,
just know it when I see it--and there is a weak gravy, which can be and
generally is, thickened with flour. 

 Occasionally, the meat skillet (has to be the heavy cast iron one) was
removed from the stove top and put in the oven to bake after the lid went
on.  This is how I learned to do game, too, with tiny onions, herbs,
wine, etc. added.  The cooking is slower and longer.  Things that are
tougher benefit from this.  I think it was the young chickens that got
fried crisply.


Fried chicken and fricaseed chicken are 2 different critters at my house.


Regards,

Allison

allilyn at juno.com

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