JCC Tomo-spiced karkana ribenes - the foodies' thread

Fried Chicken Dinner – Barto’s Idle Hour, Frontenac, KS



So, Frontenac is one of those little towns that apparently doesn’t want to lose its identity. Thus, it maintains its city limits and is marked as Frontenac on the map, despite being surrounded entirely by Pittsburg, Kansas. Frontenac is a tiny little place; I drove all the way through the town from one side to the other in about eight or nine minutes and let me tell you it is a speed trap extraordinaire, so enough said about that.

Anyway, you’ll find Barto’s Idle Hour (no, I have no idea what that means) in a residential area. It’s on the back street of the residential area, so you’ll turn onto the last street and see behind that last row of houses (and one tiny restaurant) a huge expanse of fields. Anyway, Barto’s is nothing to strike the eye pleasingly; it’s a ramshackle little building with a dining room on one side and a bar on the other. From what I hear, you can catch polka dancing in the bar most weekends. I thusly entered the restaurant. And had the best darn fried chicken I’ve ever had.

I mean, no frigging lie. I can honestly say it. I’m from Oklahoma, right? I’ve eaten fried chicken from a lot of places, including a lot of homemade fried chicken. This? Beats them all. Head and shoulders. It comes out absolutely steaming hot and juicier than any fried chicken I’ve ever had. My first bite absolutely flooded my mouth with this explosion of hot, delicious juice. I remember, with my mouth still full, blurting out, “Oh my God!” And the breading? I can’t even begin to explain it (because I’m awful at this), but it’s just astonishingly good, crispy and chewy in all the right ways in just the right measures.

“So,” people say to me, “You went to Kansas just to eat fried chicken?” Sometimes it seems kind of silly to me too; but sitting there in this tiny little dining room in this ramshackle building in a little town almost no one has even heard of, having one of the most amazing eating experiences of my life . . . well, these moments like this are the things that keep me going on this project. Barto’s Idle Hour isn’t just great fried chicken; it’s the best fried chicken. This meal is on the short list of meals that I have to kind of recommend as essential; realistically most people aren’t going to be able to make it to Frontenac, but in a perfect world . . . everyone on the planet would eat this meal at least once before they die. It’s THAT good. Highly recommended. 4 stars.

tl;dr – tiny little restaurant in tiny little town boasts fried chicken that is genuinely breathtaking and absolute essential eating. 4 stars.

More Food Reviews!

*sigh* Yes, harps, I know . . .

 

How are you not morbidly obese, eating food like this?

 

A New Brown -- The Brown Food Strikes Back -- The Return of the Brown Food -- etc.

 

How do we know he's not ?

 

http://www.epicurious.com/ingredients/12-reasons-to-fall-in-love-with-chicken-thighs-gallery

I mean, unless you want a basic chicken wing recipe.

 

Finger-licking good...

 

Artery clogging goodness!

 

I take these food vacations like once or twice a year. I'll spend a good week traveling and hitting up the legendary places for the legendary meals. (I have a list; everything I review is off that list). The rest of the year, I eat like a normal person. Well, and plus, I don't always finish the whole meal. It would be impossible a lot of the time, for one person to polish off a lot of these meals.

That's cottage cheese. And, no, there's clearly a lot more going on with this particular fried chicken than that. I've had awful fried chicken; this one is something very special.

 

lol... it's cottage cheese? That's like ordering three big macs, a monster size fry, four chocolate chip cookies, a brownie, and a large diet coke.

 

This is probably going to sound disgusting to a bunch of you, but I promise it's pretty good. I made completely homemade bacon butter.




This was my first time making butter I pretty much read a bunch of different butter recipes and did what was generally recommended.

You'll only need two ingredients for this:
1 pint of heavy cream (can use more if you want to make more butter)
4 slices of bacon (more if you want a stronger bacon flavor) I used maple bacon.

I used a kitchen-aid mixer for all of this, you could use a handheld mixer or even do it by hand, but doing it by hand would take forever and your arm may just fall off.

• Fry your bacon until it's nice and crispy. Don't get rid of your grease.
• Break it up into really small pieces. (I chopped it before frying it, I think this was a mistake as it was more work than what I think doing it after would be)
• Pour heavy cream into mixer with whisk attachment, start it on a low-ish setting. (I did around 2)
• Pour grease from bacon into the cream while the mixer is running. Only do small amounts at a time to keep the cream from curdling.
• Dump in the bacon pieces.
• Turn up the mixer to a medium setting (I did around 4 or 5) and allow to run until the buttermilk comes out. You'll know because it will look like a disgusting clumpy mess and then all of a sudden there will be liquid in the bowl and will make a huge mess if you aren't paying attention. It took 3 or 4 minutes.

(At this point I switched to the pastry attachment of my kitchen-aid)

• Pour buttermilk off the butter (save it!) and continue to mix and pour off buttermilk until only a little is coming out at a time.
• Then pour a small amount of cold water over (around 1/4 of a cup) and squish around in the butter with a spoon or a rubber spatula to get rid of the rest of the buttermilk. (I did this 3 or 4 times and got rid of this buttermilk since it was half water.)

Then press your butter into an airtight container and enjoy!



The butter has a hint of bacon flavor, but isn't overpowering at all.

Use the buttermilk for pancakes, biscuits or anything else you may use buttermilk for, just remember it will have a bacon flavor.

Use the butter for toast, biscuits, pancakes, waffles, pretty much anything you'd put butter on, though I'm sure there are a few things you might not want a hint of butter flavor, I just can't think of what they might be.

 

And I just hacked the thing on top left of this photo...sort of.



It's caprese kabobs served on lettuce + arugula mix with some tiny bits of baked tortilla added; and prosciuto as an additional ingredient for kabobs themselves. Normally, I eat them as lunch, with the juice seen top right (ginger, orange and carrot); but I needed a homemade, tiny wee variant for supper; enough not to wake up hungry in the middle of the night.



So...here it is. Some arugula, a couple of biscuits with linen seeds and white wine, mini mozzarellas, cherry tomatoes and powdered basil. Enough for a quick snack.

 

*obviously meant "thing on BOTTOM left"...stupid inability to edit posts!*

 

That isn't actually my meal, it's just a picture I found online. I don't even remember what I had for sides; after I discovered how good the chicken was, I kind of prioritized it over the sides. When the meals are big, I try to pick the MVPs and concentrate on them and not waste precious space on lumpy mashed potatoes.

 

lol.... I just like giving you ****, man. This is a thread for people who love food, and you obviously love food. But. judging by the microwave cheeseburger you had for lunch a while back, I'd guess that you don't enjoy cooking. You should give it a try... cooking is great, and so much better for you.

 

This reminds me that he didn't like the movie Chef.

 

I am making a fattening chicken, bacon and mushroom lasagne in the week. I fancy trying an alternative to béchamel sauce, so any sauce suggestions would be great

 

vin ^^ - he's my go-to guy for Italian recipe advice.