Gullah-Geechee Recipes: Gullah-Geechee Fried Chicken

Gullah-Geechee fried chicken

Gullah-Geechee foods are in my blood. My grandmother grew up in Charleston and Savannah, my great-grandmother grew up on the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina, and my great-great grandmother owned a rice plantation in the Low Country of South Carolina.

This is an awesome fried chicken recipe! The Gullah and Geechee slaves didn’t always have a sufficient supply of flour, but they usually had cornmeal from locally grown corn. Sometimes they’d have to stretch or substitute with cornmeal.

Holle’s Gullah-Geechee Fried Chicken recipe

What you’ll need:

• One cut-up fryer
• 2 eggs, beaten
• ¾ cup buttermilk
• Hot sauce, to taste
• Garlic salt
• Black pepper
• Onion powder
• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup cornmeal
• Lard or peanut oil for frying

Directions: Rinse chicken and pat dry.

Whisk together eggs, buttermilk, and hot sauce.

Place garlic salt, black pepper, onion powder, flour, and cornmeal in a paper sack. Shake to mix.

Shake chicken pieces in flour/meal, then dip into egg wash. Shake chicken parts in flour again.

Fry chicken in an iron skillet, in about one inch of lard or oil. Grease should be hot – set at a little above medium. Chicken pieces shouldn’t touch, so fry in batches. Brown chicken on both sides, then reduce heat to just a notch below medium.

Continue frying until chicken is done. This will take about 25 minutes for larger pieces, while smaller pieces will be done sooner.