Pioneer Woman's Crispy Yogurt Chicken

Sorry for that nasty gash -- it was 1.5 hours later than I thought we'd be eating, and I was in no mood for "pretty" checking that the chicken was done!

I *think* (without actually going back through my posts and looking) that this is my first Pioneer Woman recipe. That's hard to believe considering she pops up nearly every other starred item in my Google Reader!



Unfortunately, I wasn't all that thrilled with this recipe. DH liked it immensely, but I tend to be a "consistency" eater, and the panko consistency really turns me off. The flavor from the yogurt mixture was tasty, though.



It may have been better if I'd have used smaller chicken, too -- DH bought me these monstrosity-sized chicken breasts (they took almost 2 hours to cook!!!) for the recipe. Maybe it would've been better with smaller pieces of chicken.



Who knows!



Pioneer Woman's Crispy Yogurt Chicken
(Pioneer Woman Cooks)

Chicken (she uses thighs or legs -- we used breasts)
2 cups plain yogurt
2-3 cloves garlic, minced (I used pre-minced)
Handful of parsley
Juice of 1 lemon
Salt
Butter
2 cups (approx) Panko bread crumbs

Directions
- Pour 2 cups plain yogurt into an empty bowl. Add minced garlic, chopped parsley, and the juice of 1 lemon. Mix well.
- Rinse the chicken and pat dry. Sprinkle with kosher salt.
- Pour 2 cups of panko into another bowl and give it a sprinkling of salt as well. Mix.
- Butter a baking dish
- Using tongs, dip each piece of chicken in the yogurt mixture (coating entirely) and then in the panko (coating entirely again). Place in buttered baking dish.
- Place a slice of butter over the meatiest part of each piece of chicken (for the ginourmous breasts I actually used two butter slices)
- Cover chicken with foil and bake at 350 degree F oven for 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes. Remove the foil for the last 15 minutes to let the breadcrumbs brown up a bit (I had to cook mine much longer, and I reccommend more than 15 minutes uncovered to get that brownness on top!)