Oven Fried Chicken

My quest for a good fried chicken recipe is finally over.  Well, not really, because I love fried chicken and would probably be willing to try other recipes, but I don't need to actively look for one anymore. This recipe is delicious!

I found this recipe in the Comfort Food Makeovers book, and knew I had to try it.  They actually use bone in chicken breasts, but I had boneless skinless, chicken thighs, so I used those instead.  I did cut them in half, though.

The recipe also uses crushed corn flakes.  I didn't have those and didn't want to buy them just for this recipe, so I used Panko breadcrumbs.  They're crispy, delicious and I can use them in other recipes.

What's interesting about this recipe is that you only put the breadcrumbs on one side.  This way you don't have to flip over the chicken pieces, which makes the chicken really crispy.  Since the chicken is pretty thin anyway, when you eat a bite of it, you don't really notice that it's not crunchy on both sides since you get a good crunch anyway.  It's an excellent technique.  I've noticed, while making other "oven fried chicken recipes" that the chicken is not that crunchy, since one side usually ends up "wet" when it is flipped over.

From the perspective of the book, since there is bone on the other side anyway, which will not be eaten, there is really no point in putting breadcrumbs on the underside of the chicken.

The recipe also calls for using a wire rack, which would also probably help keep the underside crisp, but I didn't have one of those, so I just put mine on top of aluminum foil on a baking sheet.