Oven Fried Chicken

Buttermilk is back.

I always found uses for it, but lately it's been my go to ingredient. I've been baking and soaking and whipping and mashing, all with sweet low-fat buttermilk.

Tonight it became a tenderizing marinade for oven fried chicken. I added sliced onions, garlic, hot sauce, and S&P to the buttermilk and plopped in nice fat chicken drumsticks. I let the whole package soak for about 12 hours. For the coating I used a seasoned combo of panko bread crumbs, flour, parmesan cheese, paprika, and thyme. I drained the chicken (and saved the buttermilk for some later, hold in the freezer, pork chops) and rolled the legs in the coating. I let the chicken sit at room temperature for about 20 minutes while the oven preheated to 425º. I drizzled the chicken with melted butter and baked it for 50 minutes while I roasted some rosemary potatoes. Twenty minutes before the chicken was ready I popped some broccoli spread on a baking sheet and tossed with garlic, S&P, and olive oil in the oven. When the broccoli was roasted I tossed it (following a Barefoot Contessa recipe) with lemon zest, pine nuts, lemon juice, parmesan, and more olive oil (always more oil with Ina).

Oven-ready dinner, minimum fuss -- maximum flavor, thanks to my old friend buttermilk.