Recipe: Oven-Fried Chicken and Article: The Secret to Perfect Oven-Fried Chicken

THE SECRET TO PERFECT OVEN-FRIED CHICKEN

If fried chicken is high on your love-hate list of foods, meaning that you love to eat it but hate all its fat and calories, oven-baking is the answer. The secret to enjoying this American favorite, crisp and crusty outside and succulently moist inside, but without the fat, lies in finding the right recipe.

It took some experimenting to get golden brown "fried" chicken cooked in the oven, full of juicy flavor and with a delicious crust that's not soggy. Using breast meat added to the challenge of producing moist and tender results.

To arrive at the recipe for success, I started out using both boneless chicken breast and halves with the ribs. With each, I tested one wet coating, several dry ones, and two different oven temperatures. In every case, the cutlets came out cardboard dry, the bone-in breasts moist.

From the start, I knew yogurt would be the best wet coating. Its tart flavor is close to the tang of the true buttermilk used by old-time cooks. Normally, I would use milk to thin the yogurt. Experience, though, demonstrated that lightly beaten egg white was better because chicken coated in this mixture stayed moist without needing time to soak in it.

For the dry coating, I tested four possibilities: corn flakes, soda crackers, bread crumbs, and flour. Ultimately, a base of seasoned flour, followed by a coating of the yogurt mixture, then a generous covering of crushed crackers, produced superb results. Perfectly crisp when hot, this coating was still appealing on leftover chicken refrigerated overnight. It tasted great, hot and cold.

An oven temperature of 375 F made the chicken properly brown and cooked it all the way through; a higher temperature singed the cracker coating and hardened the meat. Placing the chicken on a greased rack helped it brown evenly without turning.

In sum, using a rack and coatings of seasoned flour, yogurt-and-egg white, and crushed soda crackers, produced great, lean "fried" chicken to serve proudly at home and enjoy at picnics and outdoor parties.

OVEN-FRIED CHICKEN

1/2 cup flour
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon mustard powder
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon rubbed sage
1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1 egg white
1/2 cup low fat yogurt
3 cups finely crushed fat-free soda crackers, about 40
2 whole chicken breasts, about 2 pounds, split and skinned

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Spray a cake rack and place it on a foil covered baking sheet.

In a wide, shallow dish, combine the flour, basil, mustard, oregano, sage, thyme, cayenne, salt, and pepper. In another dish, with a fork, beat the egg white until frothy. Mix in the yogurt. Place the crushed crackers on a plate.

Dip the chicken in the seasoned flour, turning until completely coated. Cover with the yogurt mixture, then roll it in the cracker crumbs. Place the coated chicken on the prepared rack. Leave at least 1 inch between the pieces of chicken. Spray the coated chicken with cooking spray.

Bake the chicken for 45 minutes, or until it is golden and the juices run clear when a breast is pierced with a fork.

This chicken is crunchy when served within one hour. It keeps, wrapped in foil or plastic, in the refrigerator for 2 days.

Each of the four servings contains 336 calories and 6 grams of fat
Source: Dana Jacobi by the American Institute for Cancer Research