We;ve never had so many chickens culled in one go before, so we decided to keep one whole, and to make chicken "quarters" out of the rest. This is something of a luxury. In all the years we've been raising chickens for the table (and not buying chicken), we've never done this. usualy we have a whole chicken, roast it, and then make various meals out of the cooked meat for the subsequent 3 or 4 days.
So, our culinary world is full of opportunities. And what did I choose for our first meal?
Southern fried chicken.
Yes. Home made "KFC". I haven't eaten KFC since I started keeping chickens. I used to love the taste, but once I started keeping chickens.... well, let's not go there.
I have two thighs and two drumsticks ready. I have my book, "The Takeaway Secret", to give me the ingredients. Fortunately I read the recipe yesterday in case I needed anything. Just as well, because we don't have "Dried Onion Powder" and "Dried Garlic Powder". I searched the ssupermarket websites. I could buy dried onions in most of them, and a form of dried garlic in others. I guessed that an asian supermaket would probably have them. If not, I could buy the fried stuff and grind it myself.
And then I realised that I could make my own.
Ha!
I sliced a couple of red onions (I only had red), really, really, really thinly, I separated the semicircles, and spread them out over four layers of the dehydrator (I told you thin. There were a lot of them). Then I peeled and sliced some garlic. And some more. I spread those on additional sheets. I then peeled some garlic and chopped it, and spread that on a sheet (might as well try it while I'm at it).
My book gave different temperatures for onion and garlic. Under the circumstances, I went for the higher onion temperature, and set it off.
The smell was divine.
I then forgot about it completely, DH remembered as we were watching a film we'd recorded. I've no idea what it was in Rambo II that made him think of my onions and garlic.
They were crispy. I sampled some of each - they were delicious! - and then I turned the dehystrator off and left everything inside.
This morning, to my surprise, the bits were still crispy. I gathered up the onion, and blitzed it. Then I gathered up the garlic, and blitzed that. The red onion powder is a kind of lilac colour,
I only just managed to get the required 2 teaspoons of garlic powder. All those cloves, so little powder.
From a taste point of view - yes, defintiely! The dried pieces of both were delicious. I can see them being great in a salad, or added as texture to other things. mmmm mmm mmm.
From a cost point of view - hmmm.
Garlic: We'd grown the garlic, so probably it was marginally cheaper for us to make our own. Definitely worth doing again, although next time I would do many more cloves at the same time.
Onion: dried onion powder is cheap. Dried onions, which I could blitz myself, are cheap. However, if the dehydrator is on anyway, it's probably worth doing. Yes, I think I would do it again.
I haven't made my chicken seasoning yet, doing it later. Hope it works out OK!
