chicken maryland

[wargarden]

anyone like chicken maryland

[PatsyMFagan]

I think I probably would as I love anything with chicken, but I sense you are from across the pond … so I don't think we get anything resembling what you would call Chicken Maryland … Can you provide a definitive recipe ? Personally I would liken it to KFC, but I could be totally wrong ..

[suffolk]

I remember eating Chicken Maryland at the home of USAF friends who were stationed at an airbase near to us.
As I remember it (it was a long while ago) there was delicious Southern-style fried chicken, fried banana and corn fritters ... not sure what else ... I know I enjoyed it

[Ratatouille]

I love it, properly made with really good chicken fried bananas and cornfritters for which I have a great recipe from a Southern American friend. It contains white breadcrumbs and stiffly beaten egg white.He always served it with a salad of crisp lettuce and fresh pineapple. It's not quick or uncomplicated to make properly though.

[earthmaiden]

I remember in the 60's when chickens became mass produced and cheaper, my mother making this. It seemed weird to be frying chicken - and for a weekday meal too rather than roasting it for a celebratory feast. We thought it was alright but not as nice as roast chicken and didn't have it again.

The dear friend I had in the States made delicious Chicken Maryland with all the trimmings. I still don't think it would be a first choice of a menu though - depending what else was on offer!

[Ratatouille]

EM, for his 70th birthday Mr R asked for a retro themed dinner party including Chicken Maryland - starting with prawn cocktail and ending with meringues glace with hot choclate sauce ! It was a huge sucess.

[earthmaiden]

I wouldn't turn my nose up at it! That sounds lovely and great fun.

[wargarden]

I have done a lot research on this dish.
chicken Maryland in it place of origin was defined. To be real chicken Maryland;
it has to have four elements:
1. chicken Maryland is not dipped in batter ; it is dredged in seasoned ( at minimum the dredge is flour, salt, pepper)
2. chicken is pan fired in shortening, butter or bacon grease or combination some them.
3. how it is cooked browned on both sides then the pan covered and steamed in frying pan for about 10min-15min
depending the size and type piece.
4. at time server it is covered by a cream gravy then sprinkled with chopped fried bacon or pork belly.

the traditional sides for Maryland fried are beaten biscuits, corn mush fritters.
sweet potatoes or mashed potatoes.

As for fried bananas as side that was introduced to the UK in or about 1902 at "The Criterion"
restaurant there is reference to it in "The Referee" newspaper from "Sunday 30 March 1902" p 3 in food critic article.

I could also be argued the chicken Maryland saved the UK from a bad king since the dish was one Wallis Simpson served to king Edward VIII that so entranced him.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/4615337#
a 1923 recipe for chicken Maryland.
[Youtube-URL]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2liM1qu00U#action=share[/Youtube-URL]
the link is lists a recipe similar to the chicken Maryland my grand mother made.
other sources that I use are
https://www.newspapers.com/
https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/
https://trove.nla.gov.au/
sadly i could search the uk telegraph archive from 1910-2000. for info on the dish.

[Bubbles]

Hi Wargarden, I had this in a Chinese Restaurant which a boyfriend took me to in 1967. It may seem a strange choice for a 'Chinese' but I was only 14 and never been in one before. From memory, I had about half a chicken, thick bacon, sausage, pineapple fritter, banana fritter, corn fritter, peas, tomato and chips. I have never before, or since had so much food on a plate! It was in Paisley near Glasgow, and just mind blowing. It all tasted good though, particularly the fried chicken! The boy's family, mum, dad, sister and BIL also had it as well. Not seen it on a menu since I don't think. Do you like it- are you in the US?

[Catherine]

It used to be on the menu at Berni Inn restaurants in the 70's/80's. Chicken kiev always appealed more

[Ratatouille]

Bubbles it absolutely wasn't like that at all, Thank goodness.

[Bubbles]

Rats, I'm sure! The way you did it with salad sounds lovely

[wargarden]

A few question about kitchen Maryland in UK :
1. is still served?
2. is served with cream gravy?

It sound like 1960-1970 version is just cheap fried chicken with no relation to chicken a la Maryland with cream gravy which is the real thing.

[liketocook]

Hi Wargarden, I had this in a Chinese Restaurant which a boyfriend took me to in 1967. It may seem a strange choice for a 'Chinese' but I was only 14 and never been in one before. From memory, I had about half a chicken, thick bacon, sausage, pineapple fritter, banana fritter, corn fritter, peas, tomato and chips. I have never before, or since had so much food on a plate! It was in Paisley near Glasgow, and just mind blowing. It all tasted good though, particularly the fried chicken! The boy's family, mum, dad, sister and BIL also had it as well. Not seen it on a menu since I don't think. Do you like it- are you in the US?

It's still a staple of most Chinese restaurants/take aways round here as one of the European choices

[Ratatouille]

It's a pity that wargarten never seems to respond to others' replies or even make clear the purpose of the question.

[wargarden]

Ratatouille » what post did I not reply to and what question did not answer.

if you want me to reply to a post or answer a question you need to make that clear in the post.

[Bubbles]

Hi Wargarden, I had this in a Chinese Restaurant which a boyfriend took me to in 1967. It may seem a strange choice for a 'Chinese' but I was only 14 and never been in one before. From memory, I had about half a chicken, thick bacon, sausage, pineapple fritter, banana fritter, corn fritter, peas, tomato and chips. I have never before, or since had so much food on a plate! It was in Paisley near Glasgow, and just mind blowing. It all tasted good though, particularly the fried chicken! The boy's family, mum, dad, sister and BIL also had it as well. Not seen it on a menu since I don't think. Do you like it- are you in the US?

It's still a staple of most Chinese restaurants/take aways round here as one of the European choices

You're South West of Glasgow aren't you? Funny, I can't remember seeing it in Glasgow!

[Bubbles]

It's a pity that wargarten never seems to respond to others' replies or even make clear the purpose of the question.

Yes bit of a one way street!

[Ratatouille]

I think that the whole point of the forum is to interact. So it would have been good to know on this thread just why you asked the question. For example, did you want memories and if so what are yours? It's about sharing really and I promise we do here.

[wargarden]

the reason i started this tread is i found an old family recipe book with the recipe in it and also remember eating it as child.
Also the recipe had several newspaper articles in the following pages about chicken Maryland.
Given my hobby is newspaper research found a lot of articles on the subject. Quite a lot of those articles
were written by irate people who were born in Maryland who had bad versions of the dish in restaurants in the USA,AU, and UK.
They also found newspaper change the character just to use the name and not understand unique character of dish.
These people mostly from Maryland considered those versions severed elsewhere and recipes that don't meet certain criteria too be abominations.

[earthmaiden]

That's interesting wargarden. I can imagine there have been a lot of unrecognisable versions.

[StokeySue]

We don’t really do cream gravy in the UK

Gravy has been up and down and made in different ways, but apart from onion gravy is mainly served with roast meats these days, made from the drippings in the oven tray

I think there’s a bit of a revival in making more complex gravies, more of a sauce with a bit of thought and effort (and ingredients) than it was post WW2, as people make special gravy for the Christmas turkey now

I think a combination of post war rationing and Bisto gravy powder nearly killed off British gravy though it’s only fair to point out that we make many other sauces

[wargarden]

StokeySue not even sure if powdered gravy counts as gravy.
but in the USA you can buy premade gravy in a jar.

but back to the point if you changed the gravy of chicken Maryland by adding chicken stock instead of the milk/ cream
to the roux you get a different dish called drenched chicken.

Also if take chicken fried steak which has cream based gravy and change it to stock type brown gravy like drenched
chicken you get a different dish called country fried fried steak.

or if change the type meat from pounded steak in country fried steak to ground beef and batter it you get the dish
minced meat cutlet.

[earthmaiden]

Betty Crocker says a creamy gravy is like a British stock based gravy but uses half cream. However, my experience of the kind of gravy made for home made biscuits and gravy is more what we would call a white sauce base made with milk mixed with the fat from the sausage pieces. I came to the conclusion there that the word gravy was used more widely to encompass what we might differentiate between a sauce and a gravy. Delicious whatever they're called though!

[StokeySue]

You can buy ready made gravy here in sachets and tubs, only had once from a tub it was nasty, bought because we thought it might be a good shortcut with sausage and mash or toad in the hole

Way back in the 18th & 19th centuries gravy was a Big Deal. According to Dorothy Hartley in Food in England it was a brown sauce, quite rich but not very thick, often made using spleen (melts) which has a sort of kidney like flavour. Hence Talleyrand’s famous quote - I had to look it up, it’s earlier than I thought and tbh I thought it was Soyer

England has three sauces and three hundred and sixty religions, whereas France has three religions and three hundred and sixty sauces

[earthmaiden]

Brilliant!

[liketocook]

Hi Wargarden, I had this in a Chinese Restaurant which a boyfriend took me to in 1967. It may seem a strange choice for a 'Chinese' but I was only 14 and never been in one before. From memory, I had about half a chicken, thick bacon, sausage, pineapple fritter, banana fritter, corn fritter, peas, tomato and chips. I have never before, or since had so much food on a plate! It was in Paisley near Glasgow, and just mind blowing. It all tasted good though, particularly the fried chicken! The boy's family, mum, dad, sister and BIL also had it as well. Not seen it on a menu since I don't think. Do you like it- are you in the US?

It's still a staple of most Chinese restaurants/take aways round here as one of the European choices

You're South West of Glasgow aren't you? Funny, I can't remember seeing it in Glasgow!

Guilt as charged

[Ratatouille]

I love the tallyrand quote Sue - it's a bit like De Gaulle on cheese isn't it "How can you govern a country with as many cheeses as days in the year?

I would call a gravy made with the addition of cream a veloute. So many cooking terms mean completely different things if you are speaking about UK, France of the USA. Biscuit being a good example. In UK its a cookie. In France it is a dessert base and in USA what the Brits call a scone.
There's no such thing as gravy here in France. you either have a jus - which is quite literally the juices from the meat with the possible addition of red wine, etc and thickened simply by reduction. Otherwise its a sauce or a veloute. This is the simplified explanation, whole tommes have been written and are available.

[Bubbles]

Don't feel guilty LTC, wonderful place to live. Hoping to have a few days in Portpatrick soon myself!

[liketocook]

Don't feel guilty LTC, wonderful place to live. Hoping to have a few days in Portpatrick soon myself!

Lucky you - I love Portpatrick
I'm sure Stranraer will have a Chinese takeaway if you fancy a Chicken Maryland

[wargarden]

got to remember to post the chicken maryland recipe

[wargarden]

i finally remembered i forgot to post the chicken a la Maryland I use

first it is best to use chicken parts that have not been deboned and have skin still on to make this dish
the dish is very basic but to many bad copies have given the dish bad reputation.

Maryland fried chicken is a pan fried chicken that is dredge seasoned flour.
the recipe
to before dredging the chicken in season flour dip the chicken cool water then into the dredge flour.
then set aside till oil or shorting is hot.
the chicken needs to be cooked in heavy frying pan at least 5 cm deep and have lid
bacon is fried pan first so drippings are used make cream gravy and bacon for use at serving time.
take smaller frying and add following to make gravy
to make gravy use 44ml bacon dripping and 44 ml of flour to make a roux one you make the roux.
once roux is smooth add 1/4 liter of whole milk an cook on medium temp till the gravy thickens.
to cook chicken an enough vegetable shorting about 2 cm with chicken in it.
the chicken is first browned on both sides for about 2 minute at at 385F/196C temperature
then the lid it put on and then temperature is dropped to about 320f/160C
the pieces need to cook 10 min -20min in the lid covered pan depending on the pieces being cooked.
it best to cook all the same type chicken part leg,breast,wings and thighs at same time.

once chicken is done hold in oven till the whole batch is done.
to serve place the chicken a plate then pour gravy over just before serving.
then chop up bacon and sprinkle on top

traditional sides are corn mash fritters, corn on the cob, mash potatoes,or a slice Maryland potato pie.