In continuation with posting of the recipes from the Tandoori platter that I had cooked for lunch last week, sharing here the recipe of the baked chicken. (You can check picture and the recipe links at the end of this post)
I am very fond of Tandoori food and it is a favorite food at home, the meat or vegetable may change but the Indian spices used for marination always remain same. But my Jr was after me for a long time to make something that is grilled but not using the Indian spices. Having tasted the recipes using chicken breast in some fast-food joints here, I decided to use the home available ingredients and dish out something new for him. As I stock up on my dried herbs, I have an Italian herb mix that I had asked my hubby to bring for me during one of his tours to Rome. It is my most favorite herb mix, it gives the Marinara sauce that I make at home for my Pasta dishes the perfect taste. Sharing with you all what I made the other day and it was the most delicious baked chicken meat that I ate.
BAKED CHICKEN BREASTS
INGREDIENTS:
Chicken- 2 chicken Breasts
Garlic- 2 cloves
Olive oil- 2 Tbsp
Bread crumbs- 75 gm
(Readymade) Italian seasoning mix- 2 Tbsp
Grated Parmesan cheese- 2 Tbsp
Salt- To taste
Note: Ingredients of the Italian seasoning used were-dried Garlic, Tomato, Oregano, salt, Onion, Carrot and Celery.
In case you do not have readymade seasoning available, then you can make a homemade mix of dried Oregano, basil, red chili flakes, salt, pepper, and dried onions, and garlic. If dried garlic is not available then simply increase the garlic cloves used in the recipe to 3 or 4 in number, depending on the size of the cloves. We want to impart garlic flavor to the oil, but it should not be too strong.
METHOD:
Preheat the oven to 200 deg C.
Clean and wash the chicken and pat dry using a kitchen towel or tissue.
Poke the chicken flesh with a fork, this will enable the oil and herb marinade to penetrate inside.
Take a small sauce pan, heat olive oil and then add crushed garlic cloves and the herb mix and switch off the gas flame. One could also use butter instead of oil, but my choice is always olive oil.
Mix the bread crumbs with the Parmesan cheese and a pinch or two of the herb mix. Season lightly with salt.
Apply the herb olive oil to the chicken meat, it should be rubbed well so that the flesh is drenched with the herb mix and oil. Leave it to marinate for 15-30 mins.
Note: (If in hurry to eat, bake it without marination time 🙂 )
Coat this herb oil drenched chicken flesh with the bread crumb mix.
Grease a baking dish with the herb oil and put the coated chicken breasts and let the dish then go into the oven for baking. Bake for 30-40 min.
The chicken should be turned once so that both sides are evenly baked. It takes around 30-40 min for the chicken to get cooked. Once it is cooked, I turned on the top grill function of the oven for giving the chicken surface a grilled appearance. Grill it for 10 mins so that the top coat of the bread crumbs get crispy and gave the bite the perfect crunch.
The chicken was well cooked, perfectly marinated, with crispy outer coat. I also baked few baby corns and carrot cuts along with it.
Go ahead and try out this Italian herb seasoned baked chicken dish from ashusktichen 🙂 .
Alternative to oven: In case one does not have an oven, then use a frying pan to cook the chicken. Heat the pan and add 1 Tbsp oil to it and let the chicken cook in the pan for sometime and then only turn. Later tossing and turning it from time to time gives it a crispy outer coat.
If you would like to check out other recipes from the Tandoori platter picture below, do click the links (in red) given to open the recipe posts.
ashus Tandoori platter- Tandoori Paneer , Tandoori Prawns, Tandoori Gongura prawns.
Using the ingredients that are available at home one can always dish out something new and interesting with just a bit of motivation. Hope you all liked this simple chicken bake and would go ahead and give it a try. Happy Baking 🙂
Enjoy!!
ashu.
ashstylegourmet's Blog 
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