Snack foods give chicken crunch

If you want crunchy breaded chicken, you need to start with crunchy ingredients.

That's one of the problems with most baked "fried" chicken recipes. They coat the chicken with flour- or bread crumb-based coatings that rely on you to make them crispy.

Substituting a coating that starts life crispy long before it ever meets up with the chicken removes that element of chance.

For salty, savory goodness, this recipe uses crushed potato chips and pretzels, but any combination of similar ingredients would work. For example, for a Mexican chicken, you could use tortilla chips.

While a food processor is best for turning the chips and pretzels into crumbs, tossing them into a plastic bag and whacking them with a rolling pin or skillet works, too. But the crumbs must be fine; large ones don't adhere well.

This recipe keeps the seasonings in the coating mostly neutral, but it's easy to improvise. Grated Parmesan cheese would be good, as would any number of spices, such as oregano, paprika, even curry powder.

Or experiment with flavors by using varieties of potato chips with different seasonings. Ranch or salt and vinegar chips would be particularly tasty.

Creating a white pan sauce for the chicken is easy, but you could easily skip that step of the recipe and serve the chicken however you prefer.

POTATO CHIP AND PRETZEL BAKED CHICKEN

Start to finish: 30 minutes

Servings: 6

2 ounces plain potato chips

2 ounces thin pretzel sticks

1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes

2 eggs

1 tablespoon low-sodium soy sauce

1 1/4 pounds chicken breasts

2 tablespoons canola or vegetable oil

1 1/2 cups sweet white wine (such as Riesling)

Pinch saffron threads

1 teaspoon dry parsley

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons butter

1 tablespoon cornstarch