Secret Italian Crispy Chicken
This recipe makes enough for two whole chickens, cut into quarters or eighths. If you want to do only one chicken at a time, just use less marinade.
Ingredients
Crispy Chicken
2 chickens, skinned, cleaned and cut into the size pieces you prefer
1 cup Italian dressing (recipe to follow)
1 large onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, diced
3 cups of breadcrumbs
1 tablespoon of dried parsley flakes
8-10 green pitted olives, sliced
8 black pitted olives, sliced
Italian Dressing
1/2 cup canola oil
1/4 cup olive oil
1/3 cup vinegar (either regular vinegar or white wine or apple cider vinegar)
4 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon granulated garlic
1 teaspoon granulated onion powder
1/2 teaspoon dried mustard powder, optional
1 teaspoon parsley flakes
1/2 teaspoon thyme
Method
Crispy Chicken
Lay the chicken pieces down in a pan in a single layer. Pour the Italian dressing over all the chicken pieces. Cover the pan with plastic wrap and let it marinade in the fridge for several hours or even overnight. After if has marinated about two hours, turn over the chicken pieces in the pan.
Here’s a good homemade Italian dressing recipe for those who either don’t want to use the store bought versions or prefer a healthier alternative:
Italian Dressing
Mix this up or even better, blend it with a hand blender for a few minutes. It tends to separate, but blending it with the hand blender helps alleviate this problem. Pour off one cup of this dressing and pour it over the chicken pieces. The rest, you can use over a fresh salad that goes great as an accompaniment to this chicken recipe!
Preheat the oven to 375° F / 190° C.
Spray a large roasting pan with a bit of cooking spray. Layer the onions and garlic on the bottom of the pan.
Discard the marinade that the raw chicken sat in! Never reuse marinade that sat on raw chicken, meat or fish!
Put the breadcrumbs into a plastic bag, together with the rest of the parsley flakes. Using a fork, place each chicken piece into the breadcrumb bag, shake to coat it well, then lay it down on top of the onions and garlic in the pan, right side up. Do this to each piece. Layer on the olive slices on top of the chicken pieces. If you don’t have both kinds of olives, it will still come out fine to use only one or the other kind.
Cover the chicken pieces with a piece of baking parchment paper and then with foil, leaving one side of the foil very slightly open so some steam can escape. (I put baking parchment paper on top of the food so that the foil won’t touch the food and cook into it.) Slide it into the oven and bake for 65 minutes. Uncover the chicken and bake for 10 more minutes uncovered, to crisp it up a bit more. Serve alone or along with some rice.
