Crispy Yoghurt Chicken

This dish is so good, so tasty and so easy - even Red managed to pull it off. I found it on one of my favourite blogs, The Pioneer Woman Cooks. With a few tweaks, its also a really tasty, healthy dish.

The recipe states drumsticks, but you could use any part of the chicken you prefer really. It also specifies panko crumbs, which I haven't been able to track down yet but I usually make some coarse bread crumbs from stale bread (like a pane di casa) or I think making crumbs from cornflakes would work OK too.

Crispy Yoghurt Chicken

Ingredients:
6-8 chicken drumsticks (thighs, thigh fillets and breast fillets could all work too)
2 cups plain yoghurt (natural, Greek etc - I use Greek)
2 cloves of garlic
Juice of one lemon
Parsley
Salt
Pepper
Butter
2 cups (approx.) Panko breadcrumbs

Method:
Rinse and pat dry the chicken pieces and sprinkle with salt.

In a bowl combine the yoghurt with the crushed garlic cloves, chopped parsley and lemon juice.

Put the breadcrumbs in a separate bowl and add salt and pepper.

Grease a baking dish with butter.

Coat the chicken in the yoghurt mixture and then coat with crumbs. Place in the baking dish. Finally, place a small slice of butter in each drumstick. Cover with foil, then bake in a 180 degree oven for around 1 hour and then remove foil for the last 15 minutes of cooking.

Low fat tip: No need to sprinkle the chicken with salt or grease the baking dish; use low/reduced fat yoghurt and instead of buttering the chicken pieces, I simply spray them with cooking spray - they still brown nicely in the oven.

These are really yummy and the whole family enjoy them. There is a nice, subtle tang from the yoghurt and lemon that works well. Nice in the the lunch box the next day too!

I made another of her recipes recently, a Strawberry Shortcake - more on that to come!