Friday, January 20, 2017

Cornflakes are Mennonite Panko

Long before panko hit American grocery stores, we were using crushed cornflakes to give our casseroles and breaded things crunch.  I intend to keep panko on hand, but I just never get around to it; I have cornflakes, I have breadcrumbs, I have other stuff like cornmeal and soda crackers.  Are you a panko keeper?



I made a new baked chicken recipe recently because I wanted to have something to go with greens and mac-and-cheese.  I needed that Southern menu ever since my sister told me that's what her friend's mom cooked on New Year's Day.  

I usually make mac-and-cheese in the slow cooker as a main dish for a vegetarian meal, but this time I used the stovetop version that Genevieve loves to make. It was an intensely satisfying, comforting menu.  I highly recommend it.



Buttermilk Baked Chicken, from Mennonite Country-Style, tweaked a bit by me

Melt 1/4 cup butter in 9x13 baking dish.

Cut up approximately 3-lb. chicken into 4 serving pieces (I save the neck, back, and wings for stock). Sprinkle with 1/2 tsp. salt and some pepper.

Dip in 3/4-1 cup buttermilk or kefir or yogurt thinned with milk.
Roll the drippy pieces in 1 cup crushed cornflakes. (To crush cornflakes, I do it the way my mom taught me:  put cornflakes in a long-ish bag, pinch the end of the bag between your waist and the countertop edge, and roll the cornflakes to crumbs with a rolling pin.  How do you do it?)
 
Place pieces in melted butter. Sprinkle with herbs of your choice and some paprika if you like. 

Cover loosely, either with foil or a baking sheet turned skew.  

Bake at 350F for 1 hour, remove covering, flip pieces of chicken, and bake uncovered 20 minutes longer or until chicken tests done when poked with a fork or an instant-read thermometer. 

6 comments:

Kate said...

I love panko! But like you, I found it to be too many things to keep on hand, so I dropped "regular" breadcrumbs from our pantry staples. I figure that in a pinch I can always make some out of the random bread that builds up in the freezer, but I can't do that with panko.

Nancy In Boise said...

Looks good. I recently started following Mennonite Girls Can Cook again, tons of great ideas there...

Lana said...

I buy panko and then don't use it and find it out of date in the back of the pantry so I just stopped. Obviously I don't need it. I don't keep cornflakes either because they are too sweet for my taste. I rely on crackers or crushed leftover bottom of the bag potato chips for the most part. My oven chicken is just breaded with seasoned flour and baked and turned until crisp or better yet use a Bisquick type breading which is wonderful. Here is SC fried chicken calls for mac n cheese and our southern cooked to death green beans glistening with bacon grease. YUM!

For the green beans put a 16 ounce can of cut green beans and one slice of bacon multiplied by how ever many of cans you want to make. Bring it to a full boil and boil it uncovered until every bit of liquid is gone. There is a fine line there of snatching it off the heat before they scorch but ALL of the liquid has to be gone. I have now told you our secret for the best green beans! Home canned ones work here too. Try it!

Margo said...

Lana, those green beans sound wonderful! I will definitely try it :) My greens were cooked to death - I was taught to make greens by a Southern cook!

Becky said...

Slow cooker mac & cheese? How did I not know about this?

I don't keep Panko. Or corn flakes. But bread crumbs? I got those. I also keep House Autry Seafood Breading around. It's from North Carolina, so I'm not at all sure how wide their distribution is, but I use it on pretty much everything.

jenny_o said...

I have never EVER liked green beans, but part of it was the firmness of them ... Lana's method sounds like something I could enjoy, though, especially with the bit of bacon. Thank you, Lana!