Baked Lemon Chicken (Truly Yummy)

I thought I'd share a favorite recipe that turns out really well. It comes from Betty Crocker: Baking for Today. I really like this cookbook. It has never disappointed me.

Baked Lemon Chicken

1 egg white
1 tsp water
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 1 1/4 pound)
1/2 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 to 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (optional)
Cooking Spray
Chinese Lemon Sauce (below)
1/2 lemon, cut into thin slices
1 medium green onion, chopped (optional)

1. In a medium bowl, mix egg white and water. Add chicken, turning to coat both sides. (For a more "restaurant look" pound out the chicken between 2 layers of plastic wrap before putting them in the egg).

2. Heat oven to 425 F. Spray 15 x 10 x 1-inch pan with cooking spray. In a ziploc bag mix flour, baking soda, and cayenne. Add 1 chicken breast at time to flour mixture. Shake to coat chicken. Place chicken in pan; spray with cooking spray about 5 seconds, or until surface of chicken appears moist.

3. Bake uncovered 20-25 minutes or until chicken is done.

4. While chicken is baking make the Chinese Lemon Sauce. Let chicken stand 5 minutes; cut each breast diagonally into about 5 slices. Pour warm sauce over chicken. Garnish with lemon slices and green onion.

Chinese Lemon Sauce

1/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup chicken broth
1 tsp grated lemon peel
3 Tbl lemon juice
2 Tbl light corn syrup
2 Tbl rice vinegar
1/4 tsp salt
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
2 tsp cornstarch
2 tsp cold water

In 1-quart saucepan, heat all ingredients except cornstarch and cold water to boiling, stirring occasionally. In small bowl mix cornstarch and cold water; stir into sauce. Cook and stir about 30 seconds or until thickened. Serve warm.

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This sauce is awesome! We like plenty o' sauce, so I increase the ingredients by 1/2, or you can double it if you prefer. We also add extra garlic and lemon juice just for kicks.

The chicken bakes up beautifully in this recipe. It's perfectly-puffy-breaded and looks like it came from a restaurant. If you want to impress someone, this is an easy meal. Serve over rice, steam some broccoli and start off with a green salad (unless you make egg drop soup).

(the book lists Calories 295; cal. from fat 35; Fat 4g; Cholesterol 75mg; Sodium 640mg; Carb 35g; Protein 30g)

I think this sauce would taste great with the plain chicken if you toss it all in the slowcooker, following the same guidelines as the orange chicken recipe listed above. (Don't roll your eyes at my over-explaining. I have friends who really don't know how to cook and so you have to tell them everything so they'll feel comfortable making it). Feel free to reduce sugar and corn syrup amounts. You could probably just leave the corn syrup out all together in the slow cooker because there will be plenty of time for it to reduce. Add a bit more water and cornstarch if it's not thick enough for you.

Since I'm doing recipe overload, other dinner ideas for this week are: spaghetti (you can add some italian pork sausage with your beef, or use chicken instead of red meat; we like some meat with our meal.) Soft tacos/burritos - load up with beans (and Beano) if you want a vegetarian meal (it's one of the few meals we can do vegetarian); think of your favorite burrito, if it has rice on it cook some extra rice with your chinese meal and then you just have to warm it up for the burritos; if it has guacamole (yummy) splurge occasionally and get the avocados. If you have extra avocado, or guac you can roll that over into a gourmet (cheese)burger the next night; go bunless on your burger to save a few calories. (Besides, at our store a iceberg lettuce is usually cheaper than plain buns, definitely a lot cheaper than the tasty, gourmet buns). Homemade pizza, we made plenty of frozen pizzas over the holidays, but some of the favorite is homemade, toppings can include ham (diced or canadian bacon), sausage, seasoned ground beef, pepperoni (buy it on sale, it stores forever), a variety of bell pepper, onion, fresh tomato, olives, and mushrooms. What do you like to put on pizza?

For me from the Betty Crocker site:

Lemon-Apricot Sauce
2/3 Cup apricot preserves
2 Tbl Lemon Juice
1/2 tsp soy sauce
1/4 tsp ground ginger

Mix all the ingredients in 1-qt saucepan. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring frequently until hot. Pour over chicken.

Like the Lemon Sauce above it's only supposed to make enough to drizzle over 1 pound of chicken, so I'll have to make a bit extra so it can also drip into the rice.