Oven Fried Chicken with Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes

I'm always trying to find the best oven fried chicken recipe for two reasons. One, fried food is obviously not the healthiest food to eat; and two, I am terrified of hot oil. I have several scars that prove being a klutz and hot oil do not mix.

I have had pretty good results with this recipe from the Cook This, Not That cookbook by David Zinczenko and Matt Goulding, it has the flavor, but it's missing the right texture. I got better results on texture with this recipe from the Chobani kitchen, but the flavor wasn't quite there. I decided to try and use elements from both recipes, the results were so-so.

I used a mixture of buttermilk, Greek yogurt, and hot sauce; but I think next time I will just cut out the buttermilk all together and just use the Greek yogurt and hot sauce.

Of course, the best side dish with fried chicken is mashed potatoes; and the only way to make mashed potatoes is with garlic. I used roasted garlic, which if you have never had you need to make right now. Roasting the garlic helps mellow out the flavor of garlic, for those people who don't appreciate the nuances it adds to a meal. Usually, when you make roasted garlic you cut off the top of a head of garlic (yes the entire head), cover it in olive oil, and then wrap it up in tin foil. I was out of tin foil, so I cut down a soda can and used that (always have to improvise).

Toasting the breadcrumbs

Mashing the potatoes

The best low fat butter I have found, only two ingredients: milk and salt

The chicken hot out of the oven

The finished meal

Oven fried chicken recipe:
3/4 cup buttermilk
3/4 cup Greek yogurt
2 tbsp Sriracha
1 1/2 lb skinless chicken legs
1 1/2 cups panko breadcrumbs, toasted
Fresh ground pepper
Olive oil cooking spray

1. Mix together buttermilk, Greek yogurt, and Sriracha in a large container. Place chicken in the mixture, cover, and mix up. Let marinate in the refrigerator over night.
2. Preheat oven to 450°. Put breadcrumbs and pepper in a bowl. Take chicken one piece at a time out of the marinade, cover them in breadcrumbs and place on a cooking sheet. Once all the chicken has been covered in breadcrumbs, spray with the cooking spray and put them in the oven for 20-30 minutes.

Roasted garlic mashed potatoes:
1 head of garlic
1 tbsp olive oil
1 lb Yukon Gold potatoes
1 tbsp butter
1/2 cup of buttermilk
Salt
Fresh ground pepper

1. Cut the top off of a head of garlic to expose the cloves, place on a piece of aluminum foil, and pour the olive oil over the garlic. Wrap the garlic in the foil and place in the 450° oven for 20-30 minutes. Unwrap the garlic (carefully) and let cool. You should be able to squeeze the cloves out of the skin, if you can't, place the head on its side and press with a knife.
2. While the garlic is roasting, cut the potatoes up into chunks, put in a pot, and cover with water. Bring the water to a boil, cover the pot and let it simmer for 20 minutes or until the potatoes are fork tender. Drain the potatoes and return to the pot. Put buttermilk, butter, garlic, salt, and pepper in the pot and mash the potatoes.