Whip it Up - Week #6: Pioneer Woman's Crispy Yogurt Chicken

So I love the cooking, pictures and recipes that the Pioneer Woman makes. Her food always makes me drool. So today I had no plan for dinner and the recipe for Crispy Yogurt Chicken looked good and I was up to finally try one of her recipes. I think driving by all the farms this weekend in KY and TN made me think of her and her life and how I can't believe she left the life of a city for the life of a farm...but that's another post.

So I didn't take pictures of my process in making this because Ree just did and her pics are way better than any I could ever put on this site (at least now) and I will let you go see her pics there. If you did not see this recipe originally or you haven't ever gone over to the Pioneer Woman, I strongly suggest you do - its so much fun to see how someone lives such a totally different life.

So here is her recipe - I edited out some of her comments but left some of them in. I added in some of my own, those are in blue.

Ingredients:

Chicken (I used legs, but any piece of chicken will do), Plain, Unflavored Yogurt, Garlic, Parsley, Lemon Juice, Salt, Butter, and Panko Bread Crumbs.

• Begin by throwing 2 cups of plain yogurt into a mixing bowl.
• Now peel a couple of cloves of garlic. And mince them very finely.
• Now throw the garlic in with the yogurt. Now grab some parsley. It gives a nice, fresh flavor to the chicken.
• Chop the parsley finely. Then throw it into the yogurt. Give the mixture a little stir.
• Now cut a lemon in half. Then squeeze in the juice, stirring well to combine. My lemon was very juicy - we'll see if that effects the taste at all
• Now go thoroughly rinse the chicken, and salt it well.
• Pour some Panko breadcrumbs into a second bowl. I start with about 2 cups.
• Salt the breadcrumbs just to give them a little more flavor.
• Now, in final preparation for our landing, go ahead and butter a baking dish. First, place the chicken, one at a time, into the yogurt mixture. Turn it over to thoroughly coat. Then roll in the Panko breadcrumbs. They’ll adhere really well—just make sure to coat all the areas of the chicken thoroughly.
• Repeat until all the chicken is breaded and place in the buttered baking dish.
• Then, place a slice of butter over the large part of the chicken. This is a very important step, as the Panko breadcrumbs tend to get pretty dry without the moisture of the butter. (I used butter spray to cut down on the calories).
• Now cover in foil and bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour, removing foil for the last 15 minutes to allow it to get nice and golden. I actually had to bake mine for almost 1 hour 15 minutes this time, so be prepared to keep going until it’s nice and golden and sizzling. You’ll want the breading on the underside of the chicken not to be soft and mushy, so pay attention to it.
• Serve it with a big, green salad with Homemade Ranch Dressing. I did not make the dressing. I just served it with a salad with Gorgonzola, dried cranberries, red onions, and candied rosemary walnuts from the Green Grocer at North Market - I love these things!

Question time:

Was the recipe easy to follow? Because the Pioneer Woman does such a great job taking pictures and breaking down the recipe visually, yes it was totally easy to follow. I didn't include her pictures and if you decide to make it, go to her site and follow her directions.

Did the dish taste good? It was OK, a bit soggy even though I cooked it for well over an hour. I think I used too much yogurt.

Would you ever make it again? Probably not, but I'm glad I tried it. I have it for leftovers tomorrow if I want to eat it again.