Oven-fried chicken with flavor: A journey of discoveries

Over the years, I've worked at creating great-tasting oven-fried chicken while meeting nutritional standards. Trying to keep fat low a few years ago got me to stop making pan-fried chicken like my mom's.

My mom used a paper bag to which she added flour, salt and pepper to coat her chicken before frying it in Wesson oil. It was pretty darn good.

When low-fat foods became the rage, I switched to oven-frying chicken. That worked well for lowering the fat since skinless, boneless chicken breasts are very low in fat. Unfortunately, they never had a truly crisp exterior and, due to how chickens are raised on factory farms, lacked flavor as well.

I tried brining the chicken to keep the breast meat from drying out. And although they were more tender because of the salt denaturing the proteins, brining just added water to the chicken and made it salty - still low fat but not much flavor.

Before I moved away from consuming wheat flour, I brined chicken in a salted buttermilk solution. I added some of that buttermilk to seasoned flour, making little clumps that, when baked, were actually crunchy. The crunch price: High calories and carbohydrates.

Today, I use organic fats like beef tallow. In my opinion, the best, but not cheapest, fat source can be found at fatworks.com.

Rendered chicken fat (some call it schmaltz) from organically fed and raised chickens boosts the flavor of chicken sauteed in it.

Once I started buying organic chicken, the quality and flavor of my chicken improved.

Sourcing chickens from my local farmers market, where I could find truly free-range and healthy chickens, brought the flavor back. Free-range chickens aren't as tender, thanks to the chickens being able to run around the pasture versus being caged.

My goal: To make oven-fried chicken that, even though skinless and boneless, had a real crunch when biting through the crust and that was wheat-free.

This new path began when I discovered gluten-free panko, which is available in most grocery stores. A soak in well-seasoned, full-fat buttermilk kicked up the chicken's flavor a notch and the plain panko elevated the crunch factor.

I oven-fried my chicken thighs in organic rendered chicken fat and made sure they were not overcooked and dry.

How did they turn out?

OMG, sensational.

A few things I learned: Next time, I'm going to use a shallow pan so the thighs brown better and I'm going to put a rack in the pan so the bottom will turn out as crunchy as the top.

Overall, this recipe is worth a try.

• Don Mauer welcomes questions, comments and recipe makeover requests. Write to him at 1leanwizard@gmail.com.

Oven-Fried Crispy Chicken Thighs

1 cup whole-milk buttermilk

1½ teaspoons dried parsley

1 teaspoon sweet paprika

1 teaspoon roasted garlic powder

1 teaspoon onion powder

½ teaspoon sea salt

½ teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper

1½ pounds (24 ounces) boneless, skinless chicken thighs

1 tablespoon organic rendered chicken fat (or olive oil)

1½ cups (3 ounces) gluten-free plain panko

Add the buttermilk to a medium, glass mixing bowl. Add the dried parsley, paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, sea salt and black pepper, whisking together until combined.

Place the chicken thighs in the buttermilk mixture, submerging each, cover, and chill for at least 4 hours (or up to overnight).

Place an oven rack in the upper-middle position and begin heating the oven to 400 degrees.

While the oven heats, add rendered chicken fat (or olive oil) to a 9-by-9-inch pan. Add the panko to a medium mixing bowl. Working one piece at a time, use one hand to take a chicken thigh out of the buttermilk and allow it to drip off some of the liquid, fold in half and then place in the panko. Using your other hand, press down on the thigh and then turn over and press down again. Turn the thigh over and place in the prepared pan. Repeat with each of the thighs.

Discard the buttermilk mixture and any remaining panko.

Place the pan in the oven and bake until golden and the chicken is cooked through (165 degrees), about 30 to 35 minutes. Remove from the oven and let the chicken rest for 5 minutes before serving.

Serves 4

Nutrition values per serving: 349 calories (31.8% from fat), 12.3 g fat (3.9 g saturated fat), 20.5 g carbohydrates (19.8 net carbs), 2.8 g sugars, 0.8 g fiber, 36.5 g protein, 147 mg cholesterol, 627 mg sodium.

SaltSense: Adding no sea salt reduces the sodium per serving to 337 milligrams.

Don Mauer