Chicken Elegant

(This recipe was originally posted in conjunction with the Meijer Ad Week of 2/12/12 - 2/18/12)

Here's another one of my mother's awesome chicken recipes!  The ingredients are pretty basic, but the combination is mouth-watering!

Ingredients:

6 boneless, skinless chicken breast pieces
2 eggs (beaten with 1 Tbsp water)
3/4 - 1 cup dry bread crumbs
1/2 tsp garlic salt
2 Tbsp cooking oil
6 slices mozzarella cheese
6 Tbsp chili sauce

Directions:

Trim all visible fat from chicken pieces.  Mix together bread crumbs and garlic salt.  Heat cooking oil in large frying pan.  Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Grease a 9x13 baking pan.  Dip chicken pieces in egg/water mixture, then in bread crumb/garlic salt mixture, and place immediately in hot oil.  Cook chicken pieces 3-4 minutes on each side, or until lightly browned.  (The idea is to create a crisp coating, not cook the chicken all the way through.)  Remove browned chicken from frying pan and place in baking pan.  Top each chicken piece with a slice of mozzarella cheese and 1 Tbsp chili sauce.  Bake in preheated 375 degree oven for 15-17 minutes.  Serve with baked potatoes (sale at Meijer this week!) and vegetable (broccoli and asparagus both on sale this week!).

Options and Tips

• If you'd like to bring down the cost of this recipe, try using chicken thighs instead.  Trim skin off chicken pieces before dipping in egg/water mixture. 
• You can also reduce the cost of the recipe by making your own dry bread crumbs.  Dry the bread first:  bake bread slices on ungreased baking sheet for 20 minutes at 200 degrees.  Cool, then whirl bread pieces in a blender or food processor until fine crumbs are created. 
• I'm always a little nervous about getting my chicken cooked completely, but I can't stand it when it's overcooked and dried out!  Sometimes I just cut into the thickest piece of chicken and check the color.  If there's any pink in the middle, it's not done.  Other times (and this is a more exact method, for sure!), I use my digital meat thermometer.  The general consensus is that boneless, skinless chicken breast is cooked through when the temperature reaches 160-170 degrees.  Remember that the internal temperature will continue to rise (about 5-10 degrees) in the first few minutes AFTER you remove the chicken from the oven...so if the temp is 158 when you take it out of the oven, you'll still be in the safe zone.

This recipe, in its original form, can be found on page 251 of Heritage Christian School's "Favorite Family Recipes" cookbook.  I made a few adjustments to the cooking/baking times and temperature.