Patton has maintained her composure in the face of the criticism she’s been receiving.
Although Paula Patton’s well-intentioned take on fried chicken is delectable, her approach is far from straightforward.
On her Instagram account, the “Four Kids and It” actress demonstrated how to prepare her mother’s favourite fried chicken in a video released recently. A seemingly harmless post on Facebook rapidly sparked outrage on Twitter, with people debating how to properly clean raw chicken — and then fry it — before rehashing the topic on how to properly clean raw chicken, as well as how to properly fry it.
The entire saga started about a month ago when Patton posted a video on Instagram showing how she prepared and fried 138 chicken wings in under an hour. However, when Olympic track and field athlete Ashley Spencer posted a reaction video to TikTok on Monday, the post received a fresh jolt of inspiration.
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For a while, Spencer and Patton appeared to be on the same page when it came to how to prepare the American classic, particularly when the actress stated that “one of the most important things if you’re going to cook fried chicken is you’ve got to clean it.”
When Spencer heard that Patton was getting to work, he said, “Gotta clean it.”
Patton’s method did, however, have a negative impact on Spencer when the latter realised that they had different standards for cleaning the bird veered paths. In the video, Patton gives the chicken a thorough rinse with cold water before cooking it. At the sight of Patton moving on to the next step, which included dipping the raw meat into flour, Spencer cried out, “That chicken ain’t clean.”
“Can you tell me where your seasonings are, Paula?” Spencer inquired as he stood there watching Patton shake the chicken in a bag of flour. “Does this sound like your mother’s recipe?”
Spencer’s disappointment was compounded when it was discovered that the seasoning had been applied in the middle of the fry.
While lowering the wings into the oil, Paula stated, “We’re going to put them in.” “After that, we’ll get started on the seasoning process.” When the chicken is partly soaked, she proceeds to sprinkle Lawry’s Seasoned Salt, black pepper, and paprika over it with a shake of her hand.
After saying, “The spices dropped off in the fat,” Spencer quickly covered her mouth with her hands when she saw the oil in the pan, which seemed to be generously seasoned with salt and pepper.
Several users expressed their disappointment with Spencer’s TikTok in a popular Tweet that posted Spencer’s video. “Paula Patton just destroyed my day,” one user said. The tweet sparked a flurry of responses that branched out into a variety of disputes, including whether or not Patton had properly cleaned her chicken, whether or not she had properly seasoned it, and whether or not her racial background had any bearing on the whole situation.
As one user put it on Twitter, “Paula Patton really smiled while shak[ing] unseasoned chicken in a sack of unseasoned flour.”
“The fact that she said that it was her mother’s recipe and that she was multiracial made me believe that her mother was probably white. As it turned out, I was correct “Another user shared their thoughts.
The following message was written by another commenter: “Dear Black People: Spend more time with your mixed offspring and educate them how to properly create Black and Southern cuisine.” “Paula Patton’s chicken is a disgrace to our cuisine,” says a critic of the chef.
Patton, who has spent the most of her career as a leading lady in Black films, has been outspoken about her racial identification in the past. “The Clay Cane Show” on SiriusXM’s Urban View in 2021 provided her with an explanation of why she wanted to identify as Black while having a white mother.
According to her, “the political climate around race in our nation is such that when (someone) wants to make it very apparent that they are not Black, it is a means to keep them distinct from Black people.” ‘We understand that being Black has a long history of being unpopular in this nation, to be quite honest with you, and we understand that. For some reason, I’ve always thought it was an offensive phrase. “I am of African descent, and I embrace it; that is my family.”
Not all of the comments about Patton’s recipe, on the other hand, were so personal.
“I think I’ll give it a shot,” wrote one of the more optimistic Twitter users. “It has the potential to be beneficial.”
Popeyes even chimed in on the squabbling, responding, “I’m not going to lie, I was hoping for something like this, but I didn’t get it. I’m not going to lie, I was hoping for something like this, but I didn’t get it. Stunning dresses…, “as a playful tribute to the legendary black singer Aretha Franklin’s masterful shading
What do the culinary authorities have to say?
During an email exchange with TODAY Food, Hervé Malivert, Director of Culinary Affairs at the Institute of Culinary Education, said that Paula did nothing wrong with her approach and that he agreed with her.
According to him, “everyone cooks differently, and I don’t believe anything Paula did was bad.” I would, however, alter a few aspects of the recipe if I were to prepare it for myself.” To reduce splashing and cross-contamination while Paula is washing her chicken, she might rinse the chicken in a dish filled with water as she is washing it. We’re not sure whether she cleaned off the sink after the video was filmed, but it’s possible. “I don’t wash chicken because it’s disgusting.”
Malivert also pointed out that the actress wasn’t necessarily incorrect in her decision to season the chicken as it was cooking in the pan.
Paula Patton really shook unseasoned chicken in a bag of unseasoned flour while smiling pic.twitter.com/zyZWK1rLkp
— soul. (@nottodayyoubum) April 4, 2022
In this case, he added, “seasoning the chicken in the oil may work since Paula is not using a lot of oil to pan-fry the chicken (rather than deep-frying the chicken).” “I personally would season the chicken wings first before dipping them in the flour for at least 5-10 minutes, to allow the spices to enter the flesh completely.” Despite the fact that Paula cooked little wings, it’s possible that the spices are just on the outside of the chicken.”
Patton has maintained her composure in the face of the criticism she’s been receiving.
Patton responded to criticisms on her famous fried chicken recipe in a video she posted to her Instagram account on Tuesday, which she captioned “Peace, love, and fried chicken.”
During the video, in which she appeared to be in good spirits and smiling while on vacation in Mexico, she said, “I just wanted to respond and say listen, I get it.” “It can seem to be insane. It’s just the way we do things. It is my mother’s recipe, which I learned from her. I do believe in washing the chicken, and perhaps because of the way the video was edited, it appears that I do not wash it for a long enough period of time. “However, I definitely do because I give it to my child.”
Patton revealed that the 16 pounds of chicken she cooked in the video was intended to feed the whole school where her son Julian attends.
“It’s something I produced for school. But, in any case, it’s all okay since everyone has their own method of creating things, and I’m open to recommendations. I’m in the process of inventing a new kind of fried chicken “She made a witty remark. “But I’m going to cook my mother’s chicken the way she used to prepare it from now on. We season the oil and do everything else the way we always have, it’s simply the way we do things.”
Patton concluded her essay by stating that she valued the input from readers as a method of improving her work, demonstrating that for her, everything is gravy. “I hope you all have a lovely Tuesday,” she added at the conclusion of the video before it was cut off. “I’m sending love to everyone.”