Cornflake and Yogurt Chicken (Happy Birthday Justin)

Heh, Justin is 22 today, but he barely seemed to want to celebrate it. (I suppose that happens, once you get older than you would like? ;) hehe). I offered to make him a cake, but he said no. In fact, he doesn't want any desserts coming out of our kitchen for the next two weeks! (Such a health freak :P) I don't have too big a problem with that though, since I am getting tired of all the sweet indulgences we've been having of late. When he told me that he wanted his birthday dinner to be "healthy", well, now, that IS a problem. Because I simply don't DO healthy. ;) But I suppose I had to manage somehow?

So, I decided to take one of the recent recipes from CookieMonster's blog. It sounded healthy enough to me and I thought it was a rather funky idea. Hehe, here we go!

What you need:
6 boneless chicken pieces (I used drumsticks)
250 ml yogurt
About 4 cups crushed cornflakes
Seasoning for your chicken (whatever you like, spices, salt, pepper, etc.)

What you do:

1. Preheat oven to 180 C.
2. Rub in the seasoning into the chicken flesh, and soak in the yogurt for about 20 minutes.
3. Dip chicken in cornflakes, place on a shallow baking dish and leave to rest in the fridge for 30 minutes.
4. Bake for 30-40 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through and juices run clear.

The result was juicy succulent pieces of chicken was a crunchy crust! The texture was amazing, both inside and outside. Hadi particularly liked the cornflake layer, although Justin thinks that the cornflakes didn't really go with the chicken... Well, Ihsan thought it did! (haha, shameless self-promotion!) But seriously, the cornflake flavour was really good, I thought, and the crunchiness contrasted really nicely with the tender chicken. I do believe I'll make this again, hehe. Though perhaps not when Justin is around. :P

Justin actually envisioned something other than this, when he told me he wanted a healthy dinner. Something along the lines of green and leafy. But that is simply out of my skills, hehe. I would have no idea where to start. Although, this chicken is still healthy, he did admit. Especially since Hadi bought LOW-FAT yogurt. The golden-brown colour reminded Justin of deep-fried chicken though, hehe. This was not fried at all (healthy healthy!) but tasted great! A sure winner in Ihsan's book, hehe. ;)

Just a few minor problems to iron out though. I marinated the chicken in Sainsbury's chicken seasoning the whole day, but I don't think I put enough, because there was no taste of it at all. The chicken just tasted like chicken (and cornflakes, of course, hehe). On that note, I didn't taste the yogurt at all either. Although this could've been because I was leery of using vanilla yogurt with chicken. (Yes, CM, I still think it sounds weird, haha). So I used plain yogurt instead. When Hadi heard this though, he insisted that the vanilla would go with the chicken. Am I the only one who thinks it sounds like a weird combo???

Another thing, I didn't have time to leave it to rest in the fridge after coating with the cornflakes, so I just popped it in the oven straight away. Didn't affect it much, although the cornflakes might have stuck better to the chicken if I did. CM suggests using chicken breasts, but the boneless chicken breasts here are horribly expensive, so I deboned drumsticks instead. That turned out quite well, since I usually find chicken breasts too dry, and the drumsticks were really juicy. It might not have worked with thighs though, since those would be too oily and might soften the crisp cornflake layer. Due to lack of time, I also didn't crush the cornflakes as finely as I should, but the result wasn't too bad. Gave the chicken a bit of character, hehe. ;)

Also, I really wasn't sure what to serve this with. Rice and pasta don't quite seem to go with it. Maybe potatoes, but we haven't bought any recently, so that's a no go. In the end, since this is an Asian flat after all, I served it with rice, but told the boys to go crazy with their chilli sauces. I myself had it with tomato sauce, heh. It tasted quite good. Maybe next time, instead of cornflakes with milk, I should use tomato ketchup instead? ;) hehe. And now, something a little different for today:

Fact of the day: John Harvey Kellogg invented cornflakes in 1894 as a food that would not break the false teeth of his old patients!