Oven-Crisped Chicken and Garlic Lemon Spinach

*Post by Angela.

Sorry, healthy eating advocates. There really is no substitute for a great piece of deep-fried chicken. There's something magical in the process of dipping food in hot oil that transforms otherwise ordinary food into the extraordinary. Hell, as it has often been said, you could deep fry a shoe, and it would probably taste pretty darned good. That being said, choosing to deep fry food tends to double, triple, or quadruple the calories and fat of an otherwise healthy item. As I'd like both of us to stick around longer (so we can eat more food), it behooves me to find some sort of alternative when we crave the crisp delights of deep fat frying. The other evening, we tried on a recipe for oven-crisped chicken from the Williams-Sonoma cookbook "Essentials of Healthful Cooking." The results were pretty good, as this recipe yields the kind of flavor and textural elements we crave from fried chicken. And it saved us more than enough calories to enjoy a nice, light side dish of citrusy, garlicky spinach. 

List of ingredients for the chicken:

• 1 cup panko
• 2 tsp black sesame seeds (the recipe calls for regular sesame seeds, but I didn't have any except for black, so that is what I used)
• 1/2 tsp paprika
• 1/2 tsp onion powder
• 1/4 tsp each kosher salt & fresh ground black pepper
• 1 large egg
• 1 1/2 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 3/4" strips lengthwise (or just buy 1 1/2 lb chicken tenders)
• Canola oil spray

I removed the middle rack from my oven and preheated it to 450 degrees. I crafted this lovely foil square and sprayed it down with canola oil, then placed it on the removed rack. The cookbook specifies that you need to leave at least an inch open on each side of the foil square to allow the heat to circulate and cook the chicken evenly.

Next, I got down to breading the chicken. I cracked my egg into a small bowl and gave it a light whisk. In a plastic container, I combined the panko, sesame seeds, paprika, onion powder, salt and pepper, closed it up and shook to distribute all the ingredients equally throughout. Then the assembly line began - first a quick dip in the egg ...

...then into the panko mixture. I made sure to press the crumbs firmly into the chicken to make a nice crust.

Finally, each piece of chicken got a light mist of canola oil before landing on the prepared foil square.

I slid the rack into the oven, and after about 10 minutes, I flipped the chicken pieces over. I cooked for an additional 12 minutes, then removed the chicken to a platter to rest while I made our side dish.

List of ingredients for the spinach:

• 1 lb baby spinach
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• Zest of 1 lemon
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• Sea salt and fresh ground black pepper

I gave the spinach a quick rinse and shake, leaving some moisture clinging to the leaves. Then I heated my wok over medium heat, added the oil, zest and garlic, and cooked for just 30 seconds.

I heaped the spinach into the wok, using a pair of tongs to turn the leaves so that they wilted easily. After a very quick 2-3 minutes, all the leaves were nicely wilted.

I removed the spinach to a platter and sprinkled with flakes of sea salt and some ground black pepper, to taste.

Yeah, I know. Not the most exciting meal in the world. But the crust on the chicken was pretty crunchy and flavorful, and the chicken itself was still really moist. And unlike our deep fried creations, it didn't leave us feeling like a grease bomb exploded in our stomachs. Nevertheless, I'm not about to throw out my recipe for Korean fried chicken - you and I both know, there's no replacing the good stuff.