Well, we finally got cable, which means the various channels that play cooking shows of all kinds have been having their fair share of viewing time in our house. We recently discovered Man vs. Food and every time I watch it, my old treif taste buds come roaring back. Sure, I’d like to sink my teeth into a Philly cheese steak, but I ain’t gonna do it–ever. Luckily, there are some very tasty meat alternatives out there that allow us to indulge a little. The most recent episode we saw featured some delicious fried chicken. Yum. I mean, YUM. The secret to some good, Southern fried chicken is a solid 24 hour marinate in buttermilk. But alas, that’s not happening in our kosher home. But just because we’re not bathing our chicken in buttermilk doesn’t mean we can enjoy some ‘fried’ chicken. So, this shabbat dinner I tried out some oven-fried chicken. Now, Ina (a.k.a. The Barefoot Contessa) has an oven-fried chicken recipe but alas it calls for buttermilk so that wasn’t happening. I scoured the internet for oven-fried recipes that didn’t include dairy and really didn’t find much. I needed it to be dairy-free but also needed it to be juicy. As a Southern woman, I find it difficult to think of making any kind of fried or oven-fried chicken without buttermilk but as a kosher woman, well, it’s out of the question. Still, it needed to be juicy. I can’t be the only person out there who has sunk there teeth into what looked like a nice, juicy oven-fried drumstick, only to find it so dried up you’re faking your yummy noises while asking for the water (“Mmmmm, soooo good. Wow. Yum. Can anyone pass the water?”) . Finally, I settled on a recipe from the blog, The Hillbilly Housewife. I mean hell, I gotta think that an oven-fried chicken recipe from a woman flat-out admitting to being a Hillbilly is gonna a) be delicious and b)gonna involve mounds of butter. However, there was only a little and it was easily substituted for margarine and the result was very juicy. I used some fresh bread crumbs made from some left over challah and cooked it for exactly an hour. There was some thyme, there was some olive oil, there was some kosher salt. It was all very delicious, if I do say so myself.
Ingredients
(I’m actually not going to put measurements as it really depends on how much chicken you’re making. Just make sure your chicken is more than fully covered by the bread crumbs/seasonings. All measurements will be based on your liking)
Cut-up chicken
Fresh bread crumbs
Thyme
Kosher salt
Pepper
Paprika
Garlic Powder
Olive oil – Enough to coat your roasting an
Margarine
Method
Pre-heat oven to 400°.
In an empty freezer bag, or in a shallow bowl, combine the bread crumbs and seasonings. Put one portion of cut-up chicken in the bag and shake or coat it in the bowl. Lay the coated chicken in a well oiled 9 by 13-inch rectangular baking pan.
After all your chicken is nicely coated and laid out in the pan, gently place any left over bread crumb/seasoning mixture on top of the chicken to get yourself a nice and extra crispy taste. Next, put a dollop of margarine on top of each piece of chicken (more for the breast, less for a wing). This will get it that nice and juicy taste you want.
Bake the chicken for about 45 minutes to an hour. Some people recommend turning the chicken over after it is half done baking. This is probably good advice, but I didn’t turn it over because I like the under sides to be a little more moist and a little less crispy. I will leave the choice for turning the chicken up to you. You know it’s done when the chicken is a nice, golden brown color and the juice runs clear when you stick a fork in it.
Chicken - happy and coated in their roasting pan.
Post-oven and ready to be devoured.
