Heather says:
This recipe is versatile, use any 3 – 5lbs of bone in chicken, use breasts, thighs, or a cut up a whole chicken. If you have young children they can help with shaking, but only if your container has a tight fitting lid or said child is old enough to understand they need to be careful. I warn from experience. If you use any of the variations, many kids enjoy crushing items in a zippered bag. It’s destruction without the consequences!
For variety, substitute an equal amount of any of the following in place of the potato flakes:
- crushed corn flakes
- crushed Rice Crispies
- crushed cheese crackers such as Cheez-Its
- seasoned bread crumbs
- plain bread crumbs, but add: garlic powder and Italian seasoning
- crushed plain or butter crackers
Experiment until you find your favorite.
Ingredients:
- 3 – 5lb bone in chicken parts (here’s how to cut up a whole chicken)
- 1 cup buttermilk (or substitute 1 cup milk + 1 tsp white vinegar)
- fresh ground pepper
- 1/2 cup flour
- 1/2 tsp salt
- fresh ground pepper
- 2 TBSP olive oil
- 2 TBSP butter
- 1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese
- 2/3 cup instant mashed potatoes
- 1 tsp of your favorite seasoning blend (We roll with Cajun in the Solos home)
Place the chicken parts in a shallow dish, whisk together the buttermilk and pepper, pour over the chicken. Set aside.
Next we’re going to set up our assembly line. In a container with a tight fitting lid add the flour, salt, and pepper. Give this a good shake (with the lid on!) and set aside. Next, in a microwave safe shallow dish add the olive oil and butter, microwave just long enough to melt the butter, it took between 20 – 30 seconds in my microwave. Set next to the flour container. In another lidded container place the final three ingredients, close the lid and give it a good shake. Grab a baking sheet and line it with foil. Normally I’m all about a little olive oil or cooking spray, but humor me. If you are completely texture oriented and need the chicken as crispy as humanly possible get a baking rack to place over the sheet.
Preheat the oven to 375F.
Find something to do for 5 minutes or so. Go wild, plan a side dish.
Starting with the smallest pieces: wings, drumsticks, thighs, then breasts, place one or two pieces in the flour container and give it a good shake. One at a time, remove the pieces from the flour, shaking off any excess, and dip in the oil / butter mixture. Shake the pieces again and add to the final container, giving a good shake to coat the piece evenly. Place on the baking sheet or rack.
Once all of the pieces have moved through your assembly line place in the oven for 40 – 60 minutes. Use a meat thermometer to ensure the largest pieces have reached 165F. If using a whole chicken it may be necessary to cook the breasts longer than the wings and drumsticks, simply set them aside on a paper towel. If the coating on larger pieces looks as though it may brown too quickly, use a small piece of foil as a tent to shield the coating.
Serve immediately.
Enjoy!
Suggested sides:
My grandmother and mother both made “Oven Fried Chicken” when I was younger, but somehow I never learned how. Thanks for the recipe! I admit, I plan to modify it since i know they would cut up the chicken and soak it in ‘garlic milk’ overnight. I think it was buttermilk with garlic, and now I have to give it a try because that was the best fried chicken I ever remember eating. 🙂
If you marinate your chicken in buttermilk (milk with apple cider vinegar works, too, but not quite as well) overnight in the refrigerator it is even more tasty.
Buttermilk is expensive so you can reuse the leftover buttermilk marinade immediately to make biscuits to serve with your chicken (milk/vinegar doesn’t really work for this, just real buttermilk). The meat flavor disappears, leaving just a little richness. Don’t reuse the buttermilk for anything that isn’t thoroughly cooked, as it will have picked up salmonella or other bacteria from the chicken. If you can’t use it immediately, discard it – it has a usable life of 24 hours from when it first comes into contact with the chicken, and it will become very dangerous even if kept refrigerated.
If you can’t cook your marinated chicken on the night planned, remove it from the marinade, rinse thoroughly, and put back into the refrigerator in a clean container – it will hold for ONE more day. After that, discard it. The milk gives bacterial growth a boost.
One thing you learn when you do a lot of cooking is that flavors are best when you do something just a little dangerous, like marinating chicken in buttermilk or using a well-aged cut of meat. But it’s a fine line between delicious and deadly, so be sure to err on the side of caution – when in doubt, throw it out.
Idea..
I noticed something unique, a couple weeks ago, in an un-named place..
and I’m going to suggest, it here, because you mentioned the kid thing..
To prep wings, to go into a hot bar, the fried wings and sauce were put into a very large plastic tub, with a seal/lid. Then the container was wrapped, tightly, with several layers of plastic wrap!
After shaking, the lady cut the plastic wrap off and poured them into her “hot bar” thingee..
As expensive as plastic wrap is.. because I refuse to buy non sticking generic, again.. I think its worth it to have the help, of a child, to shake it! They could drop it and if the container didn’t break, you’d still be good to go!
(I’m laughing, thinking about cheap plastic wrap, like this, with two strips of duct tape! It would work and then could just be cut off, too! I’ll take pictures, for you, when I try it.)
I wish I would have learned this 20 years ago.. *sigh*
I’m so glad you put the alternate ideas, for “topping”…
I’ll trade you 2 cups of crushed tortilla chips for 2 cups of crushed corn flakes?? No joke. *grin*
I crush a bag of “cheap” potato chips. I use a rolling pin to crush
them in the bag and then drop the chicken pieces in the bag after dipping them in egg. Pam, South Bend
YUMM!!!! This is something that I have to try, we still have a lot of snow here in upstate NY and this just sounds like a snowy day comfort dinner!
Great ideas for the crust. My mom would add Tabasco for flavor no kick for me! Thanks for the ideas 🙂
Do you guys think this would work to make chicken nuggets or tenders?