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Friday, February 12, 2010

Oven-Fried Chicken



Fried chicken is almost criminally delicious and I could eat it all day, dipping crispy-skinned pieces in ketchup, especially those white ones that tend to be a little dry. A lot of fried chickens though leave you feeling greasy, salted, and completely bloated. Rodney is particularly prone to suffering after having fried chicken.

Frying chicken at home sucks as it tends to make the kitchen a wreck (I don't have a splatter screen due to the fact that I avoid frying anything). The one buttermilk-brined fried chicken recipe I tried wreaked serious havoc on Rodney like you wouldn't believe. Banquet chicken is a good stand-in (I love Banquet chicken!), but it takes an hour and if you're gonna spend an hour waiting for chicken from a box to reheat, you may just as well make your own.

I perused allrecipes.com and found a few oven-fried chicken recipes. The one I chose was selected for ease, limited ingredients, lack of dairy, and decent comments.

Oven-Fried Chicken

10 chicken thighs
salt and pepper to taste
3 eggs
1 c all-purpose flour
1 c Italian seasoned bread crumbs
1 tsp paprika (I forgot this)
1/2 c vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Place flour in a shallow plate or bowl and season with salt and pepper to taste. Put the bread crumbs in another shallow plate or bowl and beat the eggs in another bowl.

Dredge the chicken piece by piece in the flour, then the egg, then the bread crumbs, until all pieces are coated.


Pour the oil into a 9x13 inch baking dish. Add the chicken to the dish and sprinkle with paprika to taste.

Um, this was not going to work, so I opted to do batches of 5 on two separate baking sheets.



Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes, then turn pieces over and bake for another 30 15 minutes.


Remove from oven and drain on rack.



The chicken turned out pretty well; it was wild how it actually smelled like it was frying as it cooked in the oven. I didn't like how some pieces came out looking like charcoal briquettes. Bonus for me is that Rodney likes some stuff burnt, including breaded chicken skin.

I'll certainly make this fried chicken again, though I'll reduce the oil quantity (like many comments suggested) and utilize a meat thermometer to minimize cooking time even more.  An hour total is way too much and I'll bet even 45 minutes is overkill.

Cost:

  • chicken thighs, ~5 lb at $0.77/lb: $3.85
  • eggs: $0.42
  • SWAG on other ingredients: $1
Total: $5.27 or $1.32 for each of four servings.



We had oven-fried chicken, corn-on-the-cob and buttered baked potatoes for dinner.


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