Gluten-Free Oven Fried Chicken

Quite a while back, I watched an episode of Hemsley & Hemsley : Healthy & Delicious where the Hemsley girls made oven fried chicken. What's interesting about their oven fried chicken (called Pablo's Chicken after the boyfriend of a cousin) is that the chicken is coated with ground almonds instead of flour.

The chicken is "fried" in the oven, well baked rather, and it turned out looking so beautifully golden and crispy. I was quite intrigued and grabbed 2 packets of ground almonds when I went to Tesco.

One weekend I gave it a go and was pleasantly surprised at how well the chicken turned out. I did not blog about it but I told myself that I should, the next time I made some.

Well, this almond crusted chicken did not cross my mind in recent times until one weekend when I found a packet of ground almonds in the fridge. Hah! Time to make that nice chicken again.

But one packet was not enough for 8 pieces of chicken. So I dug around hoping to find another one (knowing full well how I love to hoard stuff) but all I could find was a packet of ground hazelnuts. Almonds, hazelnuts, they are nuts and they were ground, so it should work.

It worked beautifully. If you ask me, which is better, regular fried chicken or this, I would say that each has it's own merits. I enjoy either one. If I had to choose, I would have one of each hah..hah...

Serve this fried chicken with your favorite salad. I like mine with coleslaw.

To get the best flavors, be generous with the seasonings. I find that most recipes tend to be a little on the conservative side. So I just go loco and double or triple the recommended amounts.

Eat immediately after it comes out of the oven for that nice crunch because the coating loses it's crunchiness once cooled.

Gluten-Free Oven Fried Chicken

Recipe source : Adapted from Hemsley & Hemsley

Ingredients :

- 4 chicken legs, thigh and drumsticks separated

- 130g ground almonds

- 2 tbsp smoked paprika

- 1 heaped tsp ground cumin

- 2 tsp sea salt

- 2 tsp dried thyme

- 2 tsp dried oregano

- 1 tbsp garlic powder

- 2 eggs, beaten

Method :

1. In a mixing bowl, combine ground almonds, smoked paprika, cumin. salt, thyme, oregano and garlic powder. Whisk or stir to ensure all ingredients and evenly mixed.

2. Dip chicken into beaten egg, shake off excess and coat with the ground almond mixture.

3. Place coated chicken pieces on a lined baking tray.

4. Bake at 180C for 40 minutes or until chicken is cooked and coating is crispy and golden brown.