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| Oven friend chicken is an easy way to get that great crispy taste and texture without deep frying. |
When oven fried chicken is on the menu what child wouldn’t want to pile into a station wagon with eight other people and spend the day driving around southern New Brunswick?
That was my childhood — weekend road trips to St. Andrew’s, St. Martins, Deer Island, Campobello, New River Beach. One woody station wagon, seven kids (one prone to carsickness), a huge picnic and a repertoire of camp songs to last the day. Rain or shine we’d hit the road for family time.
I don’t recall any squabbles although I was the littlest so spent our travels in the front seat, sitting on the bump in between mom and dad. The older kids were wedged into the back seat and my two youngest brothers were stretched out in the very back, on top of the coolers and other beach paraphernalia.
Those were the glory days of family travel. With no iPods or DVDs we sang, told jokes and looked out the window. We recognized all of the landmarks and although we probably asked “How much longer?” I suspect the question was redundant because we had the landscape memorized.
Mom’s oven-fried chicken was always on the menu for these picnics. In fact it was the only time we ever ate oven-fried chicken so the recipe has always remained a treat. It tastes good cold but would be good right out of the oven too.
Mom’s easy oven fried chicken
- ½ cup butter
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1 cup flour
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1 tsp. salt
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¼ tsp pepper
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2 tsp. paprika
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2-3 lbs of chicken legs and breasts, skin on, bone in
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½ cup evaporated milk
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Juice of a lemon
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Heat oven to 425 F.
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Melt butter on a sided cookie sheet or 9”x13” pan.
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Mix flour, salt, pepper and paprika in a zip lock bag. Shake chicken pieces one or two at a time in the flour mixture then dip in ½ cup evaporated milk. Drain and shake again in the flour.
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Place skin down in melted butter in pan. Sprinkle over the lemon juice. Bake for 1 hour, flip pieces and bake another 15 minutes.
