Copycat Tex's Chicken v4

The latest in Justin's attempt to copy Tex's chicken is out~! We haven't had it in awhile, because I think we've been a bit busy, what with dinners outside and all. Well, one dinner. And probably other events as well, not sure. But anyway, enough rambling from Ihsan, meh. Here we go!

What you need:
Chicken thighs

Coating:
4 heaped tablespoons of flour
1/2 tablespoon bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tablespoon white pepper
1/2 tablespoon black pepper
1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon nutmeg
1/2 tablespoon sage
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon chicken stock
1/2 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon onion powder

What you do:

1. Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl (or a resealable plastic bag).
2. Dip the chicken pieces in the milk and toss in the bowl to coat with the flour mixture (or add into bag and shake around until properly coated).
3. Bake in a 180 C oven for about 40 minutes or until cooked through.

Just in case you want to compare, here are links to version 1, version 2 and version 3. Following on from version 3, Justin decided to add more nutmeg, after tasting a sample of the original Tex's chicken. Version 3 also wasn't salty enough, so he added more salt as well.

While this one was cooking, it smelled really close to Tex's chicken. Very strong yummy smell, hehe. :D So I guess the nutmeg was a good call. Justin decided to serve oven chips with this instead of rice (although Hadi was insisting that we are an "Asian household" and we "need rice!" haha :D). Because we didn't have enough space for both chicken and chips, what Justin decided to do was place the chips under the chicken. Like so.

The chips were actually supposed to be in one layer, but Justin just filled up the baking dish until it was full. Since the chips were supposed to be baked for only 20 minutes, while the chicken for 40, we thought it would help prevent the chips from burning. Bad idea. The chips were blocking the heat from the bottom of the oven, so that while the top of the chicken was over-browned (see top picture) the bottom of the chicken wasn't even cooked! When I cut into my chicken, blood squirted out!!! Ewwwwwwwwww! :( So we had to microwave our chicken before eating. Not only that, the chips weren't quite done either. So we popped them in the oven for an extra 10 minutes. So yeah, even though this sounded like a smart idea to utilise our oven space, it wasn't really. Haha.

Anyway, once the chicken was cooked properly, we started eating (of course). Hadi and Justin can't quite remember what the original Tex's chicken powder tasted like, but I have it often enough, so I do recall it quite well. :) And the good news is... this is the closest Justin has gotten to it, woohoo! His coating was a lot less salty, but it seems like the nutmeg was a good addition, hehe. After all, you taste some of your food through your nose, so there was definitely a hint of Tex's chicken in his chicken (since the chicken did, after all, smell like Tex's chicken while it was cooking). I don't know what else is missing. Probably the MSG. And some of the other ingredients we couldn't find as well. It definitely needs more salt, but after that, I can't say what else it needs.

One major thing was that although the outside of the chicken was flavourful, the inside was rather blah... Even for Tex's chicken, this is the case, so I usually debone my chicken pieces before coating them. I suggested this to Justin, so he might do it next time. If he isn't too lazy, haha.

By the way, I don't think there will be anything new for the weekend (well, Friday and Saturday) since Justin is going to London to celebrate Chinese New Year. Hadi might be going out with friends, so most likely, I will be having Nasi Goreng or Tex's chicken for the next two days, haha. Do check back on Sunday. :D

Quote of the day: If a man's gonna eat fried chicken, he's gotta get greasy.