I have been a fan of the Cook’s Illustrated ecosystem for a long time. My mother, understanding that my interest in science could easily be transferred over to an interest in cooking, purchased me the Cook’s Illustrated cookbook as a gift when I was in college, and I have been hooked ever since. Growing up in Dallas, Texas, gave me a keen taste for southern cooking, and Cook’s Country recipes get me pretty close to the flavor and texture that I grew up with. I had been very curious to try this recipe after seeing the picture in the cook’s country TV show cookbook, and I assure you I was not disappointed.

Cooking fried chicken is a messy, time-consuming process regardless of your skill in it. There’s a reason why fried chicken was reserved for Sundays and special events in early America; its reputation as the gospel bird or Sunday cluck is still preserved in the labor of each home cook that tries to make fried chicken. However, that does not stop me from trying

Firstly, I must say that this chicken recipe is delicious. I really enjoy the use of brining with olive oil to stick the spices to the raw meat. I found that this helps reduce the mess and also helps the flavor of the seasoning stick to the food. I also quite enjoy the precise measurements in temperature that Cook’s Illustrated always provides with their recipes. Although I would like to think I have a good intuition for cooking, at the end of the day, the numbers don’t lie, and I have taken to meticulously testing the temperature of everything that is involved in the cooking process. However, they also do a good job in the recipes of explaining what to look out for in your senses, like the sound of the oil, the shimmer of it, etc., to get a sense for when things are at the right temperature. I also really enjoyed the sauce in this recipe; the garlic-parsley mixture was delicious, and the parsley flavor with fried chicken calls back to recipes in American history as early as the Virginia Housewife, which I think creates a deep historical accuracy to the chicken, which I appreciate.

All in all if you like garlic and you like fried chicken and you’ve got three or four hours to kill, go ahead and cook this gorgeous recipe from the Cook’s Country TV show cookbook.