Matzo Breaded Chicken

Welcome to Passover 2018, dear readers. While today's recipe is nothing groundbreaking, I think it's important for me to chronicle my adventures in kosher for Passover cooking. Last year, I hit a real home run by adapting an old favorite, Scotch eggs, into a Passover-friendly version. I plan to make them again next week. This recipe is another adaptation of an old standby. 

I've been making this breaded chicken recipe for many years, with a post on it in 2015. This is basically unchanged, except for swapping the regular bread crumbs with matzo meal. I've also given the chicken an undercoat of matzo cake meal (much more finely ground matzo). This uses a variation on the classic flour-egg-breadcrumb coating used in dishes like Scotch eggs and Wiener schnitzel. Instead of egg, I use a mixture of mayonnaise, mustard, and Sriracha sauce to boost the flavor. One aspect of this that warrants experimentation in the future is the oven temperature. I had some difficulty getting the matzo meal to brown (you can see the light area in the photo), and ended up broiling the chicken a bit at the end to compensate. 

Carr Valley bread cheese contains no bread and is therefore
kosher for passover!

Normally, as I understand it, the first two nights of Passover feature a seder, a holiday dinner that involves, among other things, readings of the Passover story, songs, and vast quantities of wine. We decided to do that tomorrow night, and have a simple meal tonight. The main dish was the breaded chicken with an appetizer of garlic-flavored Carr Valley bread cheese we picked up in Wisconsin. I broiled it in the toaster oven, and it was rather good on a piece of matzo. Tomorrow's meal will feature braised brisket and matzo ball soup. I'm also planning to make chopped liver to have throughout the week. Making this chicken dish is a great complement to chopped liver, as you can reserve the chicken skins to make schmaltz. In fact, the skins are rendering as I write this post. See the chopped liver recipe for details.

Ingredients

• 5 chicken thighs, bone-in
• Matzo cake meal for breading
• Matzo meal for breading
• 1/3 cup Dijon mustard
• 1/3 cup light mayonnaise
• Squirt of Sriracha sauce or other hot sauce (to taste)
• Salt and pepper

Instructions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Prepare a sheet pan covered with foil. Remove the skin from the chicken and reserve for later use, if desired. Generously salt and pepper both sides of the chicken.  Spread cake meal on a plate and dredge chicken on both sides. 

Mix the mustard, mayonnaise, and Sriracha sauce in a bowl. Slather chicken all over with the mixture. 

Dump out the cake meal and spread matzo meal on the plate. Dredge the chicken pieces in the matzo meal and set on the sheet pan.

Bake the chicken until cooked through, about 30 minutes. I broiled the chicken for a few more minutes to get a little more browning on the coating.