Oven "fried" chicken

This fried chicken has everything going for it: great garlic flavor, a lowfat oven-baked crispy crust without skin, and serving ease--it's great hot or cold. Cooking the garlic before adding it to the rest of the coating ingredients makes it less sharp. A food processor or blender makes fast work of this preparation.

4 servings
Bread crumb coating
- 5 large garlic cloves, minced
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1½ cups fresh fine-textured bread crumbs
- 2 tablespoons yellow cornmeal
- 1 tablespoon grated lemon zest
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon freshly ground pepper

Chicken
- 2 tablespoons dijon mustard
- 1 tablespoon water
- 2 teaspoons honey
- 4 each: chicken thighs, drumsticks

Lightly grease a jelly roll pan (cookie sheet with sides).
Combine garlic and oil in a small skillet and heat the oil until the garlic is fragrant but not browned.
Combine the garlic and oil with the remaining coating ingredients, the crumb mixture should be a fine and uniform texture. Set aside.
Combine the mustard, water and honey in a bowl. Set aside.
Remove the skin from the chicken pieces.
Piece by piece, coat the chicken with the mustard mixture.
Dip the pieces in the crumb mixture to coat them evenly.
Arrange the chicken in the prepared pan, meatier side up.
Bake in the center of the oven 400F until crisp and browned about 45 minutes.
To serve, the chicken can be hot, at room temperature, or chilled.

BON APPETIT