Lemon chicken, take 3--Baked Lemon Chicken

Baked Lemon Chicken
Betty Crocker Best Chicken Cookbook Copyright 1999

4 large boneless skinless chicken breast halves
1 egg white
1 teaspoon water
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cayenne pepper (1/2 tsp if you like spicier)
Chinese Lemon Sauce
cooking spray
1/2 lemon, cut into thin slices
1 green onion, chopped

Chinese Lemon Sauce
1/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup chicken broth
1 teaspoon grated lemon peel
3 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 garlic clove, minced
2 teaspoons cornstarch
2 teaspoons cold water

Cut each chicken breast half lengthwise. I forgot to cut it. Mix egg white and water in a medium glass or plastic bowl. Add chicken; turn to coat both sides and let stand 10 minutes.

Heat oven to 450 degrees. Spray nonstick cookie sheet with cooking spray. Remove chicken from egg mixture; discard egg mixture. Mix flour, baking soda and red pepper in a large resealable plastic bag. Add 1 chicken piece at a time. Seal bag; shake to coat chicken. Place chicken on cookie sheet; spray with cooking spray about 5 seconds or until surface of chicken appears moist.

Bake uncovered for 20 to 25 minutes or until juice of chicken is no longer pink when centers of thickest pieces are cut. While chicken is baking, prepare Chinese Lemon Sauce. Let chicken stand 5 minutes;slice each piece into 5 slices. Pour sacue over chicken. Garnish with lemon slices and green onion. Lemons are too expensive to use as garnish.

Chinese Lemon Sauce: Heat all ingredients except cornstarch and cold water to boiling in 1-quart suacepan, stirring occasionally. Mix cornstarch and cold water; stir into sauce. Cook and stir about 30 seconds or until thickened. Serve warm, or cover and refrigerate up to 2 weeks. I made it the night before and refrigerated it until I needed it. It was a bit thin for my taste so I added a tiny bit more cornstarch and cold water when I reheated it.

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This is my third attempt at a lemon chicken recipe. The first was good, but a bit too tangy and it lacked a sauce. The second recipe, from Katie Couric, was a disaster - way too much sauce and not a good sauce either. Someone commented that they saw her make that recipe on television and she made it differently. I sure hope so - she claims to serve it at dinner parties and I don't think the version I ate was suitable for dinner parties.

Well they say the third time's the charm and in this case they're right. This was the result I was after. I loved the sauce - the garlic in the sweet sauce was really intriguing. For the first time in my life, I could almost understand the appeal of garlic ice cream (something offered at some garlic festivals that I've seen on television but dismissed as completely wacky).

The chicken had a really nice, crispy golden coating. I gave it a generous coat of spray canola oil but it was still much less oil than if I had pan-fried or deep-fried the chicken. Even my husband commented that this was 'good chicken'.

This was quick to prepare too. I made the rice and the lemon sauce the night before and then I mixed up the flour mixture in the morning. After work, I just had to egg and flour the chicken, spray it and bake it and heat up the sauce and rice.

Blast From The Past: Crunchy Baked Chicken from April 2006 - another instance of 'oven frying' leading to miraculous results.

Question of the Day: Do you like Chinese food? What do you usually order?