Baked cornflake chicken

I love deep fried food as much as anyone, but I can't bring myself to deep-fry anything at home - the sight of all that oil just puts me off. So I was very interested when a friend mentioned that she had heard you can create the same effect by baking chicken in crushed cornflakes. Well, I gave it a go, and I must say I'm very pleased with the results. Popcorn chicken without the saturated fat! I experimented with the spices in the crunchy coating, but the flavours didn't really come through strongly enough. Next time I think I'll try dried chilli flakes, maybe sesame seeds, certainly more salt and pepper. I served this with tzatziki for dipping, and Nigella Lawson's lemon and rocket cous cous. This recipe served two people heartily.

Ingredients

• 2 large chicken breasts (free range unless you like the taste of guilt)
• 1 egg
• 4 or 5 large handfuls of cornflakes
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• ½ teaspoon of salt
• ½ teaspoon of ground paprika
• ½ teaspoon of ground coriander
• ¼ teaspoon of ground allspice
• 5 or six good grinds of black pepper

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C / gas mark 4.
2. Take a roasting tin and line the bottom of it with tin foil. Then smear one tablespoonful of olive oil over the foil.
3. Cut the chicken into generous bite-size chunks.
4. Take a small polythene bag, and put the cornflakes and spices into it. Then crush the bag in your hands until the cornflakes are reduced to little chips, the smaller the better. Then tip into a bowl.
5. In another small bowl, beat the egg with a fork.
6. Dip the chicken pieces in the egg, and then roll in the crushed cornflake mix.
7. Put the coated chicken pieces into the roasting tin, and drizzle the remaining olive oil over them.
8. Bake for 1 hour.