Serves 4 to 6

To help prevent the filling from leaking, use large, 8-ounce chicken breasts and thoroughly chill the stuffed breasts before breading. We like Black Forest ham here.

WHY THIS RECIPE WORKS:
Our goal was a Foolproof Chicken Cordon Bleu recipe that would be worth making. We found cutting a pocket into the breast to be much more efficient than the traditional method of pounding and rolling. To get the same swirl effect achieved by rolling the chicken around the ham and cheese, we simply rolled the ham slices into cylinders around shredded cheese and tucked the cylinders into each chicken breast. Adding a healthy dose of Dijon mustard to the egg wash boosted the flavor of our Chicken Cordon Bleu recipe, as did ditching store-bought bread crumbs in favor of homemade.

Serves 8

To crush the corn flakes, place them inside a plastic bag and use a rolling pin to break them into pieces no smaller than 1/2 inch.

WHY THIS RECIPE WORKS:
We marinated our Oven-Fried Chicken in highly seasoned buttermilk flavored with mustard, garlic powder, black pepper, and hot pepper sauce. Soaking the chicken for at least one hour, or even better, overnight, allowed the flavors to penetrate deep into the meat. For the coating, we used a blend of corn flakes and bread crumbs. Seasoned heavily with spices and lightly coated with oil, the coating baked up as crisp as a deep-fried crust.

We baked the chicken in a hot oven on a wire rack set on a baking sheet. The rack allowed hot air to circulate beneath the chicken, ensuring that all sides of the pieces became crisp. Traditional homemade fried chicken has 552 calories, 34 grams of fat, and 10 grams of saturated fat per serving. Cook’s Country Oven-Fried Chicken has 216 calories, 9 grams of fat, and 4 grams of saturated fat per serving.

SERVES 4 AS A MAIN DISH OR 6 AS AN APPETIZER

To make an entrée, serve this dish with steamed white rice.

WHY THIS RECIPE WORKS:
This dish, popularized by chain restaurants like P.F. Chang’s and the Cheesecake Factory, is based on a Cantonese dish called sung choy bao. Most recipes for this dish suffer from a similar fate—stringy, tasteless meat drowned in a bland sauce. To remedy this, we started with flavorful chicken thighs and marinated them in soy sauce and rice wine. To keep the meat from drying out when stir-fried, we coated it in a velvetizing cornstarch slurry, which helped it retain moisture as it cooked.

Serves 6

WHY THIS RECIPE WORKS:
Cooking canned pinto beans for our Chicken Tostadas with Spicy Cabbage Slaw in a skillet along with some of the juice from the can gave them a creamy texture similar to refried beans. Tasters preferred queso fresco—a fresh, soft Mexican cheese available in many markets—in our Chicken Tostadas with Spicy Cabbage Slaw; however, we found we could use crumbled feta cheese instead. To save time we went with a bag of coleslaw mix instead of making the slaw from scratch. Using jarred jalapeños allowed us to add some of the brine to flavor the tostada filling as well as the slaw.

Serves 4

Use any combination of white and dark meat. For even cooking, halve breasts crosswise and separate leg quarters into thighs and drumsticks. Reduced-fat sour cream can be used in this recipe. We like to serve this chicken over egg noodles or rice.

WHY THIS RECIPE WORKS:
Bone-in, skin-on chicken pieces gave our Chicken Paprikash the best flavor of all the possibilities we tested. If left on, the skin imparted an unwelcome greasiness to the sauce. We easily remedied this by discarding the skin after browning the chicken.

We discovered that not all vegetables were right for this dish. Some were slimy, others added too much bulk, and many detracted from the sweetness of the paprika. Caramelized onions and red bell peppers worked best. We really needed to pile on the paprika before it became noticeable in our Chicken Paprikash. But in large quantities it tasted harsh and gritty. A bit of tomato paste offset the bitterness of the paprika while allowing us to include enough of the spice to do justice to the dish’s namesake.

Serves 3 to 4

Try not to purchase heads of garlic that contain enormous cloves; if unavoidable, increase the foil-covered baking time to 40 to 45 minutes so that the largest cloves soften fully. A large Dutch oven can be used in place of a skillet, if you prefer. Broiling the chicken for a few minutes at the end of cooking crisps the skin, but this step is optional. Serve the dish with slices of crusty baguette for dipping into the sauce and onto which the roasted garlic cloves can be spread.

Serves 4 to 6

We prefer the flavor and texture of chunky peanut butter in the sauce; in particular, we like conventional chunky peanut butter because it tends to be sweeter than natural or old-fashioned versions.

SERVES 4 AS A MAIN DISH WITH RICE

To make the chicken easier to slice, freeze it for 20 minutes until it is firm, but not frozen.

Serves 6

Getting the initial oil temperature to 375 degrees is key to the success of this recipe. An instant-read thermometer with a high upper range is perfect for checking the temperature; a clip-on candy/deep-fry thermometer is also fine. If your Dutch oven measures 11 inches across (as ours does), you will need to fry the steaks in two batches.

Serves 6 to 8