Of all the mid-century cookbooks in my small collection, this is one of the worst. Written as it is to promote a food company’s products, almost every recipe calls for a canned, jarred or frozen short-cut – not that there’s anything wrong with that as long as it’s an honest short-cut – and some of the dishes should be against the Geneva convention. The following, for example. Oven-baked chicken is a comfort-food classic, but when it’s flavored by adding a quarter cup of curry powder to Bisquick?
From the chapter Easy Buffets:
CRUSTY CURRIED CHICKEN
12 large chicken breast halves
½ cup shortening (part butter)
2 cups buttermilk baking mix
¼ cup curry powder
1 Tablespoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper
Wash the chicken breasts and pat dry. In each of two baking pans, 13x9x2, melt ¼ cup shortening over low heat. Mix baking mix, curry powder, salt and pepper in paper or plastic bag. Shake 2 or 3 pieces of chicken at a time in bag until all are thoroughly coated. Place chicken breasts in pan, turning to coat each with shortening. Arrange skin side up in pan; cover and refrigerate.
About one hour before serving, heat oven to 425⁰. Bake chicken breasts uncovered 50 to 55 minutes or until tender.
1/4 cup curry powder! Wonder if that is a typo. Using "bisquick" to coat chicken and pork chops works really well, but as we know so does plain flour (which has less fat). Can you imagine how salty this chicken would be? yuck!
ReplyDeleteI thought I had this book in hardback version, but I'm not finding it. Was going to see if the recipe was the same.
I know you can use Bisquick, but it's clumpy. Flour is better and in fact half flour and half fine breadcrumbs or panko is even better!
ReplyDeleteYikes, I don't even have a container of curry powder that big...
ReplyDeleteHere I was thinking 'what a neat book' then I read the recipe.. yuk
ReplyDelete