Chicken on the Bone

Chicken on the Bone

September 4, 2017

Servings: 4

Prep: 15 min

Cook: 50 min

Total: 1 hr 5 min

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A family classic! If any recipe in my collection tastes like home, this would be it.

By: A Wholesome New World

Ingredients

• 1 frying chicken 3 to 3 /1/2 lbs. cut up (4-6 breasts)
• Kosher salt and ground black pepper for seasoning
• 1 egg
• 2 TBSP milk
• 1 cup instant potato flakes
• 1 tsp garlic salt
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/4 cup butter or margarine, cubed

Directions

• Step 1 Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Wash chicken and pat dry, then season with salt and pepper.
• Step 2 Beat egg and milk in a mixing bowl. In another bowl, mix potato flakes, garlic salt and Parmesan cheese.
• Step 3 Roll chicken first in egg mixture, then in potato flakes, making sure all sides are coated.
• Step 4 Place chicken skin side up in a lightly greased glass baking dish. Place a pat of butter on top of each breast.
• Step 5 Bake at 400 for 50 minutes.

In any good recipe archive, there should always be a few old favorites. This recipe for crisp-crusted chicken (referred to as “chicken on the bone” in our house), is one of those tried and true classics. I used to beg my Mom to make it when we were growing up, likely a precursor to my current-day fried chicken obsession. Just the smell of this chicken roasting immediately transports me back to my childhood. It’s not the most sophisticated or complicated dish by any stretch of the imagination, but to me, it’s perfect. With every bite, I take a walk down memory lane, back to the kitchen I grew up in, where I’d sit and watch my Mom lovingly prepare this dish for our family. Some day, I will make this chicken for my kids and it will bring me the same joy I know it brought her to cook for her family.

These days, every time I make it, I also chuckle at the memory of the first time I attempted to make it on my own as an adult…  My Mom had emailed me the recipe and I set out to purchase the ingredients at the neighborhood grocery store. Over an hour and 2 other grocery stores later, after I had paced up and down the aisles, scouring the shelves high and low for “instant potato flakes,” I called my mother practically in tears. I could not find potato flakes anywhere and no one I asked seemed to have any idea what they even were.  How could I possibly make my beloved chicken on the bone without the most crucial ingredient?! How could I have failed at this dish before I’d even begun cooking it? I was ready to call it a day and just pick up some take-out, but thankfully my Mom talked me down from the ledge. I can’t recall if she then sent me a photo of the box or just described it sufficiently enough that I could relay the description back to a store clerk, but I finally found it! Now that I know what I’m looking for – Idaho Spuds Classic mashed potatoes – it’s been infinitely easier to find it in stores since, but I have found that not every store will carry this brand. So before you make the dish, you may want to call your store and find out if they have it. Once you have a box on hand, it should cover you for at least a few meals, but I like to buy in bulk :). I hope this chicken brings you as many good memories with your family as it has brought mine!