Bake Fried Chicken With Ranch Dressing
Making flour or bread crumbs for chicken is an important step in grilled chicken. You can complicate matters with a three-step flour and egg coating, or dye the meat with mayonnaise before tossing it into flour or panko (or any other crumb you prefer). You can also use ranch dressing.
Like adding mayonnaise to mashed potatoes , this little trick has been something my stepmother has been discreetly doing for years. She only revealed her secret last weekend when we were trying to save a batch of fried chicken. (The recipe called for sprinkling one layer of flour directly on the brined chicken and throwing it directly into the hot frying oil. It didn’t work.)
Instead of breaking the eggs, she grabbed a jar of mayonnaise and dabbed it on the chicken before dipping it in the flour. “Oh, that’s what I’m doing!” I told her.
“I usually use the ranch,” she replied. “But it will work.” (Unfortunately we had no clothes on the ranch.)
Dressing Ranch isn’t exactly “flavored mayonnaise,” but it’s just around the corner, and it behaves almost identically in this app. Mayonnaise is often used as a good part of a base, although commercial dressings may contain a different oil emulsion. Like mayonnaise, it is sticky enough to hold a significant amount of flour or crumbs. Unlike mayonnaise, it has the added flavor of buttermilk, monosodium glutamate, garlic powder, and a host of other condiments, herbs and spices.
This trick is easy: blot the chicken (nuggets, whole chunks, whatever!) Dry with paper towels, then pour some ranch dressing into a bowl, use a baking brush and apply a thin layer of the sauce to the chicken. Dip the chicken in flour or crumbs, then bake, roast, or air-grill as usual. The breading will stick and the chicken will have a slight but noticeable advantage (thanks to the thin, unnoticeable layer of buttermilk and MSG).