Oven Fried Chicken

Um?  What can I say?  If you’re looking for a recipe calling for butter and white flour, a serve-it-with-mashed-potatoes-and-soak-it-all-in-gravy dinner that’s the epitome of comfort food (and it’s easy to make, too), then this is for you!

The chicken:
One fryer, cut into parts
Milk
1/4 pound butter  (1 stick)
1 cup flour
2 teaspoons seasoned salt
2 teaspoons chili powder 

The gravy:
3 Tablespoons buttery drippings from the baking dish, combined with scraped up crispy bits of chicken
2 Tablespoons of the leftover flour seasoned for chicken preparation
1 cup milk

For the chicken:
Soak chicken in milk to cover for 20 to 30 minutes. Spray a baking dish (one that will accommodate all the chicken pieces comfortably in one layer) with nonstick vegetable-oil spray.

Preheat oven to 400°F. Put the butter in the baking dish and heat it in the oven until the butter melts. Mix flour and seasonings together in a plastic bag (1-gallon size). Shake each piece of chicken in seasoned flour. Place chicken pieces, skin-side down, in baking dish. Bake for 20 minutes. Turn chicken over and bake an additional 20 minutes or until cooked through and crispy. Remove chicken and set aside in a warm place.

For the gravy:
Mix the seasoned flour with milk until you see no lumps. Whisk milk mixture into the pan drippings and butter. Boil until thickened, serve.

Enjoy!  (And maybe take a nice, long nap afterward.)

This recipe is adapted from one that originally appeared in Epicurious, May 1998.

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