This is not a baked chicken dish, but it's quick and easy and fairly healthy. If you're cooking for a bunch of hungry kids, you might note that you can fit a five pound value pack of chicken thighs (cost around $6) into a 14 inch nonstick skillet (available at Sams for around $28) and have the entire batch cooked in 20 minutes. Worth getting a big nonstick skillet just for this recipe. Crispy Chicken Thighs This is more a technique than a recipe. I learned it from a recipe by Jacques Pepin. That recipe involves making a sauce, but the chicken thighs by themselves are tasty on their own even if you don’t want to bother making the sauce. You get crispy ‘fried’ chicken without a batter and with much less fat than regular fried chicken. Quick, extremely easy, and very tasty. From a food-science-geek standpoint, what you’re doing is rendering the fat out of the skin, and the skin fries in that fat, while the flesh side is steamed in the covered skillet by the vapors liberated in the cooking process. You can vary the seasoning if you want; a little bit of smoked Spanish paprika (‘pimenton’) or chipotle powder works well instead of or in addition to the black pepper. Penzeys has a spice mix called ‘Arizona Dreaming’ that works very well on this. So does lemon pepper (Penzey's 'Sunny Spain' salt free lemon pepper is very good on this) Ingredients 4 chicken thighs, skin on salt black pepper Procedure 1. Set the chicken thighs skin-side down on a cutting board. Trim any excess floppy skin. In the flesh side cut a ½ inch deep slash on either side of the thigh bone, parallel to the bone and about ½ inch away from the bone (this helps the thigh to flatten out somewhat). Season the thighs on both sides with salt and pepper. 2. Place the chicken thighs skin-side down on an unheated non-stick skillet. Only then turn the heat to high. When the chicken starts to sizzle, turn heat to medium and move the thighs around to make sure they aren't sticking to the skillet. Cover the skillet and cook for 16 to 18 minutes. Check the chicken occasionally to make sure it isn’t sticking. If the skin is browning too much after 10 minutes, then turn the heat to low. If after 18 minutes the flesh side doesn’t look quite done, flip the thighs and fry them flesh side down for a minute or two, uncovered. When done, serve.

I love chicken, so I have a lot of chicken recipes. One of my favorites is "cheeken fu-rye," a Japanese chicken recipe. You need "panko," which is Japanese bread crumbs, available at an Asian grocery store. Do not get the honey flavored panko. You could substitute plain bread crumbs from the regular grocery store, but that tastes different. Still works the same, though. Start with boneless, skinless chicken breasts. Cut into bite sized pieces. Alternative: pound them to even thickness--about 1/2 inch. Whole breasts are easier to handle, so I usually do this instead of the traditional bite sized pieces. Hint: use one hand for the egg and the other hand for the dry ingredients. That keeps things a bit less messy. Roll each piece in flour--just enough for an even coating. I usually add some salt and pepper to the flour. I don't think that's the traditional way. Dip each piece into scrambled egg, diluted with about 1 teaspoon water per large egg. Then, roll each piece in the bread crumbs. Press gently to help the bread crumbs adhere. Until you get used to the assembly method, bread all the chicken before you start to cook it. Fry in oil that comes at least halfway up the sides of each piece. You could also deep fry. The chicken is done when it starts to steam, which causes the oil to spatter. The meat should still be very slightly pink, but not give off any red in the juice when you cut it open. Leftover fried chicken is not as crispy, but still tastes good. I warm up leftover whole breasts in the microwave, then put them in a sandwich with lettuce and tomato. I am looking forward to trying everyone else's chicken recipes. Great idea, Kit!

Woodie - the madeira reminds me of sherry. If you don't have the madeira I'm sure you could sub sherry with equally good results. Becky

Classic Chicken Piccata recipe: white wine, capers, lemon, butter. https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/chicken-piccata-2 My whole family loves this recipe for different chicken and dumplings that was posted some time back by Pkramer in a thread on the topic.. It's just as good with plain dumplings, for another variation. Chicken and Dumplings Cuisine at Home, August 2004 For the Chicken: 1 ½ # boneless skinless chicken thighs, cut into pieces ½ cup AP flour 2 T. veg oil 2 t. salt ½ t. cayenne pepper ¼ t. black pepper 1 leek, sliced into moons 1 rib celery 1 carrot, diced 1 sweet potato peeled and chunked. 2 parsnips, peeled and diced 2 bay leaves ¼ c. dry white wine 1 qt. Chicken stock 2 t. lemon juice 1 t. each chopped sage and rosemary. Preheat oven to 375, rack in center Cut chicken and dredge in flour, peppers and salt Brown the chicken in large oven proof pot with 1 T. oil over medium heat. Brown in batches, adding oil if needed. Remove from pan when brown. Sweat the veg. and bay leaves in oil until soft, 5 min. Deglaze the pan with wine, simmer until almost gone. Stir in remaining flour to coat vegetables. Gradually add stock, cover pot and transfer to oven, cook for 20 minutes.(no chicken yet) (Start dumping dough now) After 20 min, stir in chicken, lemon juice and herbs. Drop dumplings into stew and braise 20 minutes until dumplings are cooked, toothpick is clean. For the Dumplings: 1 ½ c AP flour 3 T. Parm Cheese, grated 2 ½ t. baking powder 2 t. sugar 1 t. salt ½ t. ground pepper 2/3 c. whole milk 3 T. unsalted butter Blend dry ingredients in a mixing bowl Heat milk and butter until melted, blend into dry ingredients. Shape into small balls, or use small ice cream/cookie scooper