A nice Southern classic. I like to serve this with rice on the side.
- Carbohydrate 56.38651 g
- Cholesterol 225.62734375 mg
- Fat 47.1948834375 g
- Fiber 1.30134376117587 g
- Protein 80.1251859375 g
- Saturated Fat 17.37822125 g
- Serving Size 1 1 Serving (927g)
- Sodium 1829.6715 mg
- Sugar 55.0851662388241 g
- Trans Fat 5.7735359375 g
- Calories 984 calories
Step-by-step
- Melt butter in a lightly greased 13 x 9 pan in a 425 deg F oven.
- Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper. Dip chicken in 1/2 cup buttermilk, and then dredge in flour. Arrange chicken, breast side down, in hot baking dish.
- Bake at 425 deg F for 25 minutes. Turn chicken, & bake 10 more minutes. Stir together remaining 1 cup of buttermilk and soup; pour over chicken and bake 10 more minutes, shielding with aluminum foil to prevent excessive browning, if necessary. Serve over rice.
Soaking poultry in cultured dairy before coating and baking is a foundational technique in Southern home cooking that relies on lactic acid to tenderize tough muscle fibers efficiently while simultaneously hydrating the meat prior to high-heat exposure. When adapting this preparation for larger or smaller dining groups, modifying the quantities requires careful attention to the fat-to-flour ratio because simply doubling the dry ingredients without adjusting the dairy component will result in a dry, patchy crust that fails to crisp properly in the 425 degree Fahrenheit oven. Maintaining the correct proportion of liquid marinade to poultry ensures each piece receives an adequate coating, which prevents the flour from burning prematurely during the initial twenty-five-minute roasting phase. Home cooks must account for pan geometry when scaling, since crowding a standard 13-by-9-inch baking dish traps steam, shifting the cooking environment from dry radiant heat to a braising process that ruins the desired exterior texture. Utilizing multiple pans rather than cramming extra portions into a single vessel preserves the necessary airflow around each piece of meat. Historically, baking chicken in a bath of cultured milk and condensed cream soup emerged as mid-century American households embraced commercially processed pantry staples to streamline traditional frying methods, producing a rich, savory sauce directly in the roasting pan without requiring a separate stovetop reduction. Adjusting the canned mushroom soup and remaining dairy mixture upward linearly works well for quantities up to double the original yield, provided the baking vessel remains large enough to hold the resulting volume without overflowing during the final ten-minute bubbling stage. Monitoring the internal temperature to reach 165 degrees Fahrenheit remains the most reliable indicator of doneness regardless of batch size.
