Easy crispy chicken breast with little cleanup

Boneless, skinless chicken breasts were on sale this week for $1.99 a pound, so although that's not my preferred form of chicken, I bought a tray of them. 

I learned a while back that rice flour makes a nice coating for chicken (or other meats) that doesn't get as gloppy as flour coatings but still helps hold in the moisture. 

For two plump chicken breasts:

Put into a plastic bag, like an empty bread bag, that you save for re-use like this! 

• about a cup of brown rice flour
• 1 tsp  salt
• about 1/2 tsp each paprika, ancho chili powder, white pepper. Use any other herbs and spices you like.

Break an egg into a bowl that is big enough to hold at least one chicken breast at a time. Stir the egg with a fork.

Put each chicken breast into the egg to coat it, then one at a time into the bag. Shake the bag to make sure the breast gets fully coated.

Turn on the oven to 350F. 

On the stovetop, heat a cast iron skillet, and pour in enough vegetable oil to coat the bottom of the skillet to about 1/4 to 1/2 inch. Place the chicken in the skillet and brown on each side about 4 minutes -- but use your eyes, not just a timer! Use tongs to carefully flip them over to avoid splatter. 

Then turn off the burner and slide the skillet into the oven. Cook for approximately 25 minutes, or until internal temp is 165F.

Remove from oven. Put chicken on a platter or dish and let rest 10 minutes before slicing.

 

 Easy spicy chicken thighs

 When chicken is on sale, I can't resist. This is an easy way. 

Ingredients: 

• Chicken thighs. I used 5 of the skinless bone-in ones. Use whatever's on sale!
• Rice flour, about half a cup. If you don't have it, use cornstarch. If you don't have it, use flour. 
• An egg.
• Chili sauce, about 2 Tablespoons (see note*)
• soy sauce, about 1 tsp
• salt (optional, but c'mon)  and pepper
• cooking oil, about a tablespoon -- enough to cover the bottom of the pan you are using
• water or broth or wine or beer, about half a cup -- enough to cover the bottom of the pan to about 1/2 inch.

Implements: 

Cast iron "chicken fryer" or Dutch oven or other burner-to-oven vessel large enough to hold the number of chicken thighs you are using, but see note**

baking sheet or a platter

2 pie pans or wide bowls or one of each

Procedure

Salt the chicken. Or not. Add pepper, or not.

Put the rice flour in one  or pie pan and the egg and soy sauce in the other.*** Mix the egg with a fork. Dip each chicken thigh in the egg mixture, then in the rice flour, and transfer to the baking sheet/platter.

Set the oven to 375F. 

Heat the oil in the cast iron pan over high heat. When it's hot, add the chicken thighs, in two batches if necessary to avoid crowding the pan. After about 5 minutes, check for brownness and if it's there, flip them over for another 3 or 4 minutes. (If you have to work in batches, I'm fine with putting the browned ones back on the baking sheet where the raw ones were because they are going to be cooking at 375F.)

Put all of the browned chicken pieces back in the pan and spoon in the chili sauce and whatever liquid you have chosen.

 Put in the oven, which should have hit 375 by now. Set timer for 30 minutes. If you are going to serve with rice or noodles****, this would be a good time to prepare them. 

Notes: 

 * I used Chili Garlic sauce that is apparently "Vietnamese style," but there are dozens of kinds of garlic sauce, ranging from sweet and mild to hot. Start mild unless you know you like fire. You can always add hot sauce. If I were using regular sweet chili sauce, I would probably add garlic to it at least.

**If your skillet isn't ovenproof (sometimes handles aren't) or your ovenproof casserole dish isn't suitable for stovetop cooking, you could actually cook the chicken right on the baking sheet. Careful with the water, though -- you might not be able to use as much, therefore you will have less sauce at the end. 

***I use rice flour, if I have it, or cornstarch, which I always have, because it produces a lighter "breading," more like tempura. Also, it's less messy than the flour-egg-breadcrumb breading that one typically uses on fried chicken. You do you.

****I love having this with buttered egg noodles. Lots of butter. The starch at butter seem to meld really well with the spiciness of the chili-garlic paste.
 

 

Clearly, you could add any number of veggies to this, including onions and bell peppers, or even cashews.