Fried Chicken Salted Bloody Mary’s

Fried Chicken Salted Bloody Mary’s

There are a lot of tremendous things that happen when you attend a food blogging conference. For one, you gain a great deal of inspiration, knowledge, and insight into perfecting your craft. Making new friends, reconnecting with old ones, and indulging in delectable food and beverages all help to round out the experience. The one perk that never fails to get everyone excited and talking about is the swag! Attending the IFBC (International Food Blogging Conference) in Sacramento last month hit high marks in all of the above.

One of my favorite sessions this year was ‘#SippingSocialTrends” with Kathy Casey from Liquid Kitchen. Kathy Casey is a great speaker; she had me thinking about cocktails first thing on a Sunday morning which, contrary to popular belief, is not the first thing on my mind. I’m not quite sure why I seldom featured cocktails or ‘adult beverages’ on my blog. It makes no sense at all when you consider how integral beer, wine, and cocktails are to entertaining and enjoying food. More cocktails are the new order of the day! It was during that morning session that an idea came to me, or maybe Kathy just made day drinking sound like a good idea!

I have been working on an idea for a long time for some fried chicken flavored salt. The idea was to grind some fried chicken skin with salt and black pepper. I thought it would be delicious on roasted vegetables or sprinkled on pasta or soup (or anything else for that matter). Then during Kathy Casey’s slide presentation, I saw some beverages with salted rims, and BINGO! An idea was born! Helping me out would be a jar of Bloody Mary Mix from Preservation and Co. that I snatched off the swag table.

Preservation and Co. is a local Sacramento company in the heart of midtown Sacramento that makes a variety of handcrafted and hand packed products. They make various pickled vegetables, sauces, salts, and cocktail mixes. You can check their website here for all the great things they are cooking up. Their Bloody Mary Mix is exceptional and the perfect combination of zesty and spicy. Damn the Boy Scout in me that only allowed me to take one jar. This mix is so good I instantly thought of many ways I would enjoy using it. However, after the long Sunday afternoon drive home from Sacramento, a drink sounded like a good idea. I couldn’t wait to make some Fried Chicken Salt to salt the top of a tall cold Bloody Mary.

Making Fried Chicken Salt is easy especially if you already have some chicken skin saved from a previous project. I was lucky enough to have some on hand that my butcher gave me that had been resting comfortably in the freezer. All you need to do is cut it into 1/4-inch strips, and then fry it until brown in about a half of an inch of oil. Drain it on paper towels until you are ready to grind it up. After I had fried it up, I chopped it a little on the board, and then put it into the mortar to finish. Like everything crispy, it is best to use as soon as possible. When you are ready to make your Bloody Marys, pour some chicken salt onto a small plate. In another plate pour some maple syrup. Dip the rim of the glass into the maple syrup, then into the chicken salt. Add ice, vodka, and Preservation & Co. Bloody Mary Mix according to the directions on the bottle. Garnish with fried bacon strips and pickled vegetables and olives. Bottoms up!