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Thursday, November 19, 2009

Best Mouth-Watering Chicken, ever, seriously!

     Jim LOVES chicken. He requests baked chicken with cream of mushroom soup and rice at least once a week. This just happens to be the 3rd pregnancy where that dish makes me want to gag, but, to for the happiness of my hubby's tummy, I have found the absolute best replacement: Crunchy Pecan Chicken. It is so simple, easily tweakable and we have it at least once a week! Seriously.
     It too is from my Cooking Club cookbook, Come On In! Some of you have asked for the recipe, so here ya go....I will give my suggestions and changes at the end, but if you fix it according to the recipe, it will still be absolutely one of the most mouth-watering chicken dishes you will ever taste!
1 cup     buttermilk biscuit mix
1/2 tsp   Creole seasoning
1/2 tsp   salt
1 tsp      paprika
1/2 cup  finely chopped pecans
4           chicken breast halves, boneless, skin on (I use skinless)
1/2 cup  buttermilk
1/2 cup  unsalted butter, melted

     Preheat oven to 350. Combine biscuit mix, Creole seasoning, salt, paprika & pecans. Dip chicken in buttermilk and coat with dry mixture. Place chicken in a greased 13x9 inch baking pan. Pour butter over chicken and bake uncoverred for 1 hour.
     Now...here's what I do!
     First off, I never buy biscuit mix, I make my own from scratch, so for this ingredient, I just use whatever flour I have in the pantry. Tonight all I had was whole wheat, so I was extra excited that it was even healthier! I usually cut 2 big, chicken breasts in half, making 4 small breasts, and marinate them in the buttermilk until I get ready to make the dish. I also very rarely buy a jug of buttermilk, unless I am planning on making lots of waffles and cornbread stuff. (Buttermilk: 1 tbs of vinegar and then enough milk to make 1 cup, let sit for 5 minutes. I do this all the time and can't tell a difference in any recipe, even waffles) Meanwhile, while my oven is preheating, I put my butter in a glass pyrex measuring cup and sit it in the oven to melt. For the flour mix, you can use any seasoning you like. I have used Greek Seasoning, a fish/poultry seasoning and Mrs. Dash...you can be creative. They were giving away the Zataran's Creole Seasoning at the State/Florida game for free, so I have used it lately. I think I like it best. I don't finely chop my pecans because I like more of the crunch and it's easier to convince Taylor there are pecans on it if he can actually see them. I just put them in my little Braun hand mixer-the blender part.

     Then after I have mixed everything, I dip my chicken into the flour mixture and when I have done all 4 chicken pieces, pour my leftover flour mixture in a metal strainer, shake out the flour and pour the remaining pecans on top of the chicken...yes I know, resourceful! Pecans are expensive...can't waste those things! Then I pour on my butter.

      Set the oven for an hour exactly....it took 1 hour for succulant chicken for these two large breasts, but about 50 minutes if you do the 4 smaller ones.

     You won't even need a knife to cut through this juicy chicken! I use the drippings on whatever our sides may be...couscous (my fave!), brown rice, or, like Jim tonight, on his baked Acorn Squash-see that blog too!

1 comment:

  1. I use a recipe out of the Bell's Best cookbook that is so similar to this, but it uses almonds. It is so yummy! I will have to give the pecans a try. Looks good!!!

    ReplyDelete

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