First try on \"The Chicken\"...

jeffinsgf

Oh, my God. What a recipe. Randy, I am awed by your genius. Wow.

I cut up a whole chicken and skinned it, since my wife always (and I usually) throws away the skin, anyway. I can't ever seem to leave a recipe completely alone, and this was no exception. I threw a little DP Shakin' The Tree in the flour. I did the veggies mentioned in the Naked Whiz version of the recipe. I was a little concerned, because the chicken didn't change color much. I don't cook indirect much, and with the pizza stone and the pan of veggies, the chicken wasn't exposed to any radiant heat at all. I also botched the sauce just a little. Since I was only doing one chicken instead of a bunch of parts, I cut the sauce recipe in half. Except I had a minor lapse (brain fart) and didn't cut the Louisiana hot sauce or garlic powder in half. It was still wonderful, and next time I still will use the same amount of garlic, but I wouldn't miss that second tablespoon of pepper sauce. :woohoo: We had the breasts for dinner. Can't wait for lunch tomorrow to hit those hind quarters. And, for those who caught my question the other night, I can confirm. This works just fine with skinned chicken. The flour holds to the flesh just fine. The finished flour "skin" sucks up the sauce like a sponge.

This will become a regular 1 or 2 times a month meal for us.

civil eggineer

My wife doesn't like skin either so I pull it down, season the chicken, and pull it back over for cooking. I believe the skin is a good moisture barrier during cooking plus flavors the meat as the fat melts.

Fidel

I did some last night too with boneless/skinless breasts. I did a flour/egg wash/flour breading process and was absolutely wowed by the crust. The flour was actually 3 parts AP flour to 1 part corn starch. It wasn't pretty but the flavor and texture were terrific.

When the breasts hit about 140* I hit both sides with some spray olive oil to get the breading to brown and crisp up. Once they were done instead of dipping into the sauce and then transferring to foil, I put all three in a foil boat and spooned a generous amount of sauce over them and triple wrapped them for about an hour. I also reserved a little sauce for dipping on the side.

Turned out terrific as always. It is one of our favorite chicken recipes.

AZRP

Glad you liked it and to hear it works with skinless chicken too. -RP

Canugghead

Rod, I copied your skinless chicken with flour/egg-wash/flour method tonight. The result was mixed. Before saucing, the 'flour skin' was amazingly crispy, I would definitely use this technique to bake-fry chicken in future. We then placed the chicken pieces in a shallow foil pan, spooned generous amount of sauce over them, covered and kept in cooler for 40 minutes. Unfortunately, we find that the meat is not as flavourful as the original The Chicken, perhaps the thick coat of flour prevented the sauce from penetrating the meat? just wondering.

Fidel

I notice that as well. That is why I reserve a little sauce for dipping on the side.

And when I wrap the chicken for the steeping phase I add a lot of sauce so that is it more of a marinade. The breasts are literally swimming in the sauce.

The crust gets soft and some will fall of, but you still get the flavor this way. I prefer thighs myself with this recipe, but since I am finding ways to trim fat and calories, using b/s breasts is a tradeoff I can live with.

jeffinsgf

Try doing the dredge with flour only. I did mine in a zipper bag, knocked the loose flour off, let it set for 10 minutes and then did it again. The flour layer was very thin, allowed the chicken to absorb the sauce in the rest period, and did not fall off at all.