Oven "Fried" Happy Chicken and How I Never Have Buttermilk

Happy Chickens

This is what every backyard chicken used to look like. Most supermarket chickens are white, fat, and can't support their own weight. 

The Real Food Market in Helena is where I get my poultry from. I buy one or two chickens a months and use it many times and many ways. If I could keep chickens in my own yard, I would. I would keep them, eat their eggs and when they stop laying, butcher them and eat them. But my town, East Helena, distinctly separate from Helena in many wonderful ways, said backyard chickens were not allowed. This made me sad. Until the day we are allowed, I will buy my chickens from the Real Food Market, or from my co-op if they become available.

One of the reasons I buy happy chicken is that the Real Food Market has a Real butcher that will cut them into quarters so you don't have to hack them up yourself. I used my chicken twice, earlier this week on a simple baked chicken for use in chicken salad and on salad salad and tonight on something very, very yummy.

Oven "Fried" Happy Chicken

Ingredients:

Chicken legs, thighs, and wings, from one chicken, skin on

2 cups milk

4 tablespoons lemon juice

2 cups flour

2 tablespoons dried oregano

1 tablespoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon onion salt

1 teaspoon ground black pepper

2 tablespoons butter

In the morning before I headed to work, I put the chicken in a freezer bag and wanted to marinate it in some buttermilk to give it tang and make it juicy. Who buys buttermilk though. Instead I used the Betty Crocker substitution and added milk and lemon juice together, sealed the bag and squeezed most of the air out of it, and put it in the fridge to marinate.

When I got home, 8 hours later, I combined all of the dry ingredients in a bowl and preheated the oven to 400 degrees. I melted two tablespoons of butter into my trusty cast iron skillet and started dredging the chicken through the flour mix. I dipped the chicken in buttermilk again and dredged it again. I set each piece in the skillet and when they were all double dredged and set them in the oven to bake for 40 minutes. At 20 minutes, I flipped the pieces to provide equal crunch.

Allow to rest for five minutes after they are finished.