Recipe: Oven-baked crispy yogurt chicken (Ree Drummond)

I cooked fried chicken for dinner the other night!

What's the big deal about that, you may ask? In my kitchen, I have a no deep-frying policy, so until today, I have NEVER cooked any deep fried food at home. If I hanker for deep fried fish or chicken, I will just eat it in the restaurant.

When I was browsing Ree's website, I came across this recipe for crispy yogurt chicken -I almost did not click on the recipe as I was sure this chicken needed to be deep fried in order to be crispy. Luckily I did - the chicken is oven-baked but gives similar results to deep fried chicken, so now I too can have fried chicken at home ;)

Crispy yogurt chicken

For this recipe, I used a mix of chicken drumsticks and thigh. The chicken is first coated in a mixture of yogurt, garlic, fresh herbs, and lemon juice. I also grated the lemon zest and threw that in as well. Then, the chicken is coated in a layer of panko (Japanese breadcrumbs). Finally, the all-important ingredient, a generous slab of butter is topped on each piece of chicken to keep it moist and make it crispy at the same time. By the way, this is a recipe your kids can help with - Baby D helped me make dinner and we had fun in the kitchen together :)

The verdict? Moist succulent chicken with a delicious crispy coating. It is also a lot healthier than eating deep fried chicken. The only part of the chicken that was not super crispy was the underside, which I think can be solved if the chicken is placed on a grill rack (will try this the next time). I served the chicken with a side salad (avocado, lettuce, cherry tomatoes, carrot with a honey dressing) and some Thai sweet chilli sauce for dipping the chicken in.

The chicken was finished within minutes of it being served, and everyone sat there licking their fingers. The biggest compliment came when my kids said "Mummy, next time we don't want KFC anymore... this is the BEST fried chicken!". Woohoo!

Really delicious oven-baked chicken

Oven-baked Crispy Yogurt Chicken
Recipe by Baby Sumo, adapted from Ree Drummond
Preparation time: 15-20 minutes
Cooking time: 40-45 minutes
Serves 4


Ingredients
5 chicken maryland (5 drumstick + 5 thigh)
1 cup natural yogurt
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
1/2 juice and zest of lemon
1/2 tsp fresh parsley, finely chopped
1/4 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp fresh rosemary, finely chopped
Salt and freshly ground pepper

1 3/4 cups Japanese breadcrumbs (panko)
Butter (1 Pat For Each Piece Of Chicken)

For the side salad (Recipe by Baby Sumo)
2 avocado
1 calamansi lime
1/2 box of cherry tomatoes
1 pack lettuce leaves
1 carrot, peeled and grated
2 shallots, finely chopped

Dressing:
4 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp cider vinegar
2 tbsp honey
Freshly ground salt and black pepper



1. Preheat oven to 180°C.

2. Clean the chicken and pat dry with a kitchen towel. Sprinkle with salt.

3. In a medium sized mixing bowl,  add yogurt, garlic, herbs of your choice (I used parsley, thyme, and rosemary), lemon juice and zest and a pinch of salt. Mix together to combine.

Measuring the yogurt

Mixing the ingredients together

Squeezing the lemon for juice

4. In another bowl, place the breadcrumbs. Sprinkle with salt and stir to mix.

5. Butter a baking dish or tray. With a pair of tongs (or you can also use your hands/gloves on), place the chicken, one piece at a time into the yogurt mixture first. Turn it over thoroughly to coat. Then roll
the chicken in the Panko breadcrumbs. Cover each piece thoroughly with bread crumbs and place on the baking tray.

Coating the chicken with yogurt

Followed by panko breadcrumbs

Finally, the butter!

6. Place a slice of butter over the large part of each chicken piece. Repeat for all the chicken pieces.

7. Bake in preheated oven for 40-45 minutes. The panko coating will be golden brown when you remove it from the oven. To check if the chicken is cooked through, put a skewer through the thickest part and the juices should be clear. Serve the chicken with the salad and some sweet chilli sauce.

8. For the salad, whisk the dressing ingredients in a bowl and set aside. Please refer to this post on how to pit and peel the avocado. Place the lettuce leaves in the dressing, then arrange on plate. Top with other ingredients, then pour the dressing all over.



Note: Your kids can help with Step 3 -5, including measuring out the ingredients and squeezing the lemon.

Finger licking good!

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I am submitting this to the "Cook Like Ree Drummond" event which I am co-hosting with Zoe of Bake for Happy Kids and Mich of Piece of Cake. To join, simply cook or bake any recipe from any Ree Drummond websites or cookbooks for the whole month of September 2013. You can link your posts at one of the host's pages.

Your post must be a current post i.e. posted in September 2013 - please do not link older posts.Please mention Cook like a Star in your post and link back to Zoe of Bake for Happy Kids, Mich of Piece of Cake and Baby Sumo of Eat your heart out.

Happy cooking! Do check out the other bloggers recipe below: