I learned about smoked-fried chicken from Bobby Seale. Yes, that Bobby Seale, the Black Panther Bobby Seale. Seems his "Moms" made it, and it was his favorite dish growing up. IIRC, he said she called it "Bobby Q" because he liked it so much. That's pretty childish, and since he's older than me that would date the dish into the fifties at the latest.
So, "smo-fried" was around long before barbecue comps.
I don't mean to name drop and imply we were tight or that I was some big-deal radical. Not that there's much political cachet in a forum where Francisco Franco is considered left of center.
Here's how it happened. I met Seale once, just to shake hands and smoke a doob, in the late sixties, when he came visited someone staying staying with a friend of a friend in Santa Cruz. A few years later we recognized one another at a family reunion to which he was distantly related, and which I helped Willie Walker cater in Oakland. Must have been around '74. After clean up, he broke out the herb, we started talking about food, and he told me about Moms' smoked-fried chicken.
A close approximation of what he said would be, "Soak it in some seasoned buttermilk. Barbeque it like you do, but only to half done. Back in the buttermilk just to get it wet, and bread it like you do. Fry it in a skillet, just hot enough to bubble. Cook it to about mahogany." He also told me I reminded him of the Bobby Womack song, "Hairy Hippie." The chicken was was damn good, and I've been doing it off and on ever since. The song's not bad either.
I know Bobby Seale wrote about it in his book, "Barbecue'N with Bobby Seale," published in 1988. I don't have a copy, but one of those derelicts probably does. Just sayin' is all.
Oh yeah, since the chicken is butterflied and cooks like halves, I'd figure on about 1-1/4 hours at 300 and check it at 1 hour. No liquid in the pan. IMO 300 is about as low as you can go and still get good skin, but much hotter than 325 and the bird won't take smoke right. In those kinds of cookers where you've got good control -- like a WSM -- it's not a bad idea to start a little under 300, get some good smoke into it, then crank to finish the skin. Give it 45 minutes at 275, then another 20 minutes or so at 350.
Rich