Oven Fried Chicken – In Its Birthday Suit

I love my Mom’s oven fried chicken. First, she removes all the skin and still serves up this incredibly crispy, juicy chicken that is way better than it’s deep fried alternative and has a lot less fat. It’s delicious hot. It is also excellent cold and is a perfect make-ahead picnic food, served with a classic Macaroni Salad of course.

This recipe calls for eight legs and eight thighs but you’re going to want to double or triple, heck quadruple it maybe, if making for a crowd. If you make this through the week plan to have it for supper and then send everyone with cold chicken the next day for lunch.

Oven Fried Chicken

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 tsp kosher salt
1 1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp dry mustard
8 chicken legs and chicken thighs
1 tbsp vegetable shortening

Preheat oven to 375F. In a pie dish, mix flour, 1 tsp (5ml) of the salt, the garlic powder, paprika, pepper and mustard. Rinse chicken and remove skin, sprinkle chicken with remaining teaspoon of salt and then coat chicken in flour mixture. Grease rimmed baking sheet well with vegetable shortening and place chicken on sheet. Bake in oven, basting occasionally with pan drippings. Tilt pan to get drippings if need be or add a tad more vegetable shortening if not enough drippings. Baked until golden and juices run clear about 1 hour.