Dwight Yoakum's Chicken Lickin's Chicken Rings

Every morning, country singer Dwight Yoakam gets up before the sun shines to make his famous Chicken Lickin's Chicken Rings, a recipe his own father taught him when he was growing up in a 100-square foot shack in Plastercaster, West Virginia.

The first order of business is catching a chicken. Dwight runs around in his backyard with his arms outstretched. His favorite technique is to corner a hen and leap on it. When he catches one, he inserts the chicken, beak-first, into an old fashioned laundry-wringer (the same one that his grandma, who sang briefly with the Carter Family and who bought young Dwight his first hammer dulcimer) and turns the crank until a "chicken pancake" comes out the other side. Next, he uses an empty tin can to cut out "chicken circles" from the pancake. He pokes his finger through each chicken circle to create a "chicken ring."

Each chicken ring is breaded with a special mixture, the ingredients of which were passed down from his grandfather, Claude "Pappy Bowlegs" Yoakum, who handed over the recipe after a team of former Abu Ghraib prison guards paid Pappy a visit and convinced him that it was not in his best interest to keep the recipe a secret.

Finally, the chicken rings are tossed in a skillet until golden brown. This is Dwight's favorite part of the day, and his lucky neighbors can hear him singing merrily as he stands over the stove.

The simple country boy takes pride in the basic wholesome ingredients that go into his products. You can read out what goes into his similar product, Dwight Yoakum's Chicken Lickin's Chicken Fries (it's really fun to poke a Chicken Fry through the hole of a Chicken Ring!), right on his website:

Chicken breast with rib meat, water, textured vegetable protein product (soy protein concentrate, zinc oxide, niacinamide, ferrous sulfate, copper gluconate, vitamin A palmitate, calcium pantothenate, thiamine mononitrate (B1), pyridoxine hydrochloride (B6), riboflavin (B2), and cyanocobalamin (B12)), seasoning (enriched wheat flour (enriched with niacin, reduced iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), salt, yellow corn cones, enriched yellow corn flour (enriched with niacin, reduced iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), leavening (sodium aluminum phosphate, sodium bicarbonate), spice, sugar, honey, high fructose corn syrup, dextrose, wheat starch, nonfat dry milk, extractives of paprika, soy flour, dehydrated onion, garlic powder), dried whole egg, seasoning (salt, sugar, hydrolyzed corn gluten, spices, sodium tripolphosphate, dried onion, dried garlic, partially hydrogenated soybean and/ or cottonseed oil). BREADED WITH: Bleached wheat flour, yeast, sugar, yellow corn flour, salt, oleoresin of paprika. BATTERED WITH: Water, enriched wheat flour (enriched with niacin, reduced iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), salt, yellow corn cones, enriched yellow corn flour (enriched with niacin, reduced iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), leavening (sodium aluminum phosphate, sodium bicarbonate), spice, sugar, honey, high fructose corn syrup, dextrose, wheat starch, nonfat dry milk, extractives of paprika, soy flour, dehydrated onion, garlic powder. Breading is set in vegetable oil.

I don't know about you, but any food that comes with zinc oxide and sodium aluminum phosphate makes my mouth water! Link