Here’s the first thing to remember about chicken and slow cookers–they aren’t a match made in heaven. Ten hours on LOW can render chicken deader than a doornail (see “How to Kill a Chicken Twice” in archives).

But if you’re careful, you can turn out a very flavorful dish, such as this Italian Chicken Stew that I adapted from Williams-Sonoma’s  ”New Slow Cooker” cookbook. In this case the time in the cooker is well spent–the flavors develop a richness that a quick saute can’t provide.

Warning to the set-it-and-forget-it crowd: there’s some prep work involved here. Again, it’s a necessary step to getting the maximum texture and flavor from the chicken. I suppose you could skip the browning step, but you’ll likely not get anywhere near the same results.

I served this with one-half cup of penne pasta.

Large pinch of saffron threads
1/3 cup plus 3 T. dry white wine
3 lbs. chicken pieces (I used breasts and thighs)
3/4 cup flour
salt and pepper
1 T. olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 stalk celery, finely chopped
10 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 cup low-sodium chicken broth
1 14-1/2 oz. can diced tomatoes, drained
3 bay leaves
1 T. red or white wine vinegar
Italian parsley, chopped

Soak the saffron in the 3 T. of white wine while you brown the chicken. Cut chicken breasts in half crosswise. In a plastic bag, combine the flour and generous amounts of salt and pepper. One at a time, add the chicken and toss to coat. Tap off excess flour and brown chicken pieces in the olive oil in a large skillet. Transfer chicken pieces to a plate.

Pour off any extra fat from the pan and add the onion and celery. Saute until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook 1 minute more. Pour in the 1/3 cup white wine and the chicken broth, bring to a simmer and cook to reduce slightly and to concentrate flavor, about 10 minutes. Transfer contents of the pan to a slow cooker and stir in the tomatoes, the saffron mixture and the bay leaves. Stack the chicken on top, cover and cook on LOW for 4 to 5 hours.

Using a slotted spoon transfer the chicken to a plate to keep warm. Discard the bay leaves and stir the vinegar into the liquid in the cooker. Let stand a few minutes, then skim off any fat from the surface.

Serve the chicken with the braising liquid and garnish with chopped parsley.

I found that the breasts held up better than the thighs during the long cooking. The thighs fell apart, which is not necessarily a bad thing. We enjoyed this even more the next day, when the flavors had time in the fridge to deepen and develop.

This recipe can be modified in multiple ways: you can add carrots to the braising liquid and season it at the end with basil. Or how about sauteing bell pepper strips with the onions and celery? That turns this into a version of chicken cacciatore.

Serves: 6

*Slow Cooker

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I served this with roasted root vegetables and broccoli.

I’m really getting into the slow cooker phenomenon. And it is a phenomenon, considering all the slow cooker cookbooks that line the shelves at bookstores.  Most of them are of the “set it and forget it” genre: you dump in a bunch of ingredients, many of them canned, flip the switch and let them cook together all day.

Sometimes this works, as with chili, while at other times you end up with an edible, albeit overcooked, dinner. I’m not into the merely edible. If what I cook doesn’t taste flat-out delicious I consider it a waste of my time in the kitchen. After all, I can get mediocre food at any restaurant.

The slow cooker is a tricky appliance. If you use it correctly and don’t expect it to work miracles, you can turn out some really good meals. Case in point: this turkey breast, which comes from Cooking Light’s  ”Slow Cooker” cookbook. I had modest expectations for this, but I was pleasantly surprised at how moist and flavorful the turkey came out. And the leftovers have sliced easily for sandwiches.

Why cook a turkey breast in a slow cooker rather than in the oven? Good question. The oven gives you a nice browned color; the slow cooker allows you to leave the house for hours. Take your pick. Right now, my house is under renovation and the kitchen is filled with a light layer of sheetrock dust, so the slow cooker is my cooking mode of choice.

Word to the wise: it’s very, very easy to overcook poultry in a slow cooker.  Check it with an instant-read thermometer about an hour before the end of cooking time and pull it out when it reads 160 degrees in the center of the breast. Also, Cooking Light advises cutting any piece of poultry over three pounds in half to ensure even cooking. I asked my butcher to cut the whole breast in half for me.

1 (5-lb.) turkey breast, skinned and cut in half
2 t. lemon pepper
2 T. flour
3 T. water

Sprinkle each half of the turkey evenly with lemon pepper and place into the slow cooker with the meaty sides down. Cover and cook on HIGH for 1 hour. Reduce heat to LOW and cook 5 hours or until an instant read thermometer reads 160 degrees. Remove turkey to a platter and cover with foil.

Strain cooking liquid into a small saucepan and remove as much fat as you can with a spoon. Combine flour and water thoroughly and slowly stir into the liquid. Bring to a boil and gently simmer until liquid thickens. Serve with turkey.

Note: Some of the newer slow cookers cook at a slightly higher temperature. My turkey was done at about 4 1/2 hours.

I’ll set the stage: our old house is finally getting new sheetrock ceilings. In the meantime we’ve moved out to the little cabana in the back yard where my mom used to live when she was alive. Two adults, two big dogs and a puppy in a crate. It’s cozy.

Living in close quarters is fun for about a week. Then the novelty of “camping out” wears off and the constant proximity to one’s mate quickly reaches critical mass. Say one wrong thing and you could die. It must be what living in a submarine is like, minus (my husband should be so lucky) the torpedos.

To distract myself, and because the kitchen in the house is now off-limits, I bought a new slow cooker. And here is where you can kiss my sanity goodbye: rather than follow a bona-fide slow cooker recipe, I just Googled “chicken in a slow cooker” online, found an easy, unattributed recipe and gave it a whirl without any further consideration.

After generously salting and peppering my nice, plump, expensive (it deserved a better fate than this) free range chicken, I plopped it into the slow cooker with some onions, carrots and celery. Then I turned it on High for, get this: six hours. From what I’ve since read, that’s like cooking it on Low for 12 hours!

When I opened the lid, my chicken had died a second death, only this one looked far more brutal than the first. It lay in pieces, the leg and wing bones scattered amongst the sodden vegetables. It resembled the long-dead carcass of an unfortunate desert animal.

I did not take a picture of this disaster. You wouldn’t want to have seen it anyway.

Alas, all is not lost. I acquired a slow cooker cookbook and tried it again, this time with much more success. The chicken did not fall apart and the vegetables held their shape. Mind you, this isn’t like roasting a chicken in a hot oven. There’s no crispy, brown skin. It’s more like poaching, but it makes for a pretty decent dinner, with vegetables included. I served it with a great apple chutney I got at Whole Foods. And here’s a plus: you can put the leftovers to other uses the next day. (More on that tomorrow.)

Here, adapted from Michele Scicolone’s excellent new book, “The Italian Slow Cooker”, is Braised Chicken and Vegetables.

4 red potatoes, thickly sliced
2 large carrots, thickly sliced
2 cups butternut squash, cut into 1-inch cubes
1 large onion, quartered and sliced
1 3 1/2 to 4-lb. chicken
1/2 lemon
4 garlic cloves, peeled
2 rosemary sprigs

Place the potatoes, carrots, butternut squash and onion in the bottom of a slow cooker. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Liberally salt and pepper the chicken, squeeze lemon juice over the top and place the lemon rind, garlic cloves and rosemary sprigs in the cavity. Place the chicken atop the vegetables.

Cover and cook on LOW for 5 hours. The chicken should be cooked through.

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The term dates back to the ancient Romans, who believed that Sirius, the Dog Star, was the cause for hot weather. Sirius is in the constellation Canus Major (Large Dog) and is the brightest star in the sky next to the sun. Thus its brilliance and its fortuitous position in a canine constellation gave it special meaning to ancient peoples. When the star shone brightly at sunrise, they knew they were in for a heat wave.

Throughout history, “dog days” became synonymous with summer heat and all of the aberrant behavior that seemed to accompany it. In the children’s novel, “Tuck Everlasting”, the author wrote, “”These are strange and breathless days, the dog days, when people are led to do things they are sure to be sorry for after.” (See picture above!)

If you’re trying to watch your weight during this sultry time of year, you’re apt to relate to that statement in spades.

Full-fledged cooking is out, with the exception of heating up the outdoor grill. Here’s a cool salad, adapted from Cooking Light, that is very refreshing. It’s got a lovely curry flavor and lots of fresh fruit in it. If you don’t want to cook the chicken breasts, pick up a rotisserie chicken on your way home and toss this together in just a few minutes.

Cool, fruity, exotic! Accompany with whole wheat crackers or a baguette.

The original recipe called for low-fat mayonnaise as the only binder, but I used half greek yogurt because it’s a great no-fat substitute. If you want to further reduce the WW points in this salad, you can use all yogurt, but I think mayonnaise gives it a creaminess that’s worth the extra calories. After all, life is only so long.

1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breast, cooked and cut into 1″ chunks
1 cup seedless red grapes, halved
1 cup peeled, diced apple
2 T. currants or raisins (yellow are good)
1/4 cup Hellman’s Light mayonnaise
1/4 cup fat-free plain Greek yogurt
1 t. honey
1 t. curry powder
1 t. fresh lemon juice
1/4 t. salt
1/4 t. pepper
2 T. sliced almonds, toasted

Combine fruit and chicken in a large bowl. Stir together mayonnaise, yogurt, honey, curry powder, lemon juice, salt and pepper in a small bowl and pour over chicken mixture. Gently fold together and sprinkle with almonds.
Cover and chill.

Serves 4 (a generous cup per serving)

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Everything cooks together in one big Dutch oven.

The moment Spain won the World Cup on Sunday I got a text from my friend Laura that read, “You have to put a paella recipe on the blog to honor Spain.” Laura, you are a woman of good taste and exceptional timing.

Paella is considered by many to be the national dish of Spain; if you travel around the country you will get different versions of the dish everywhere you go. Most include rice and some sort of seafood and/or meat. This recipe, adapted from Cooks Illustrated, contains some of both.

Paella is seasoned with saffron, the world’s most expensive spice (because it comes from the hand-picked stigmas of saffron crocus flowers). So far as I know, there is no substitute for the taste of saffron, but you can use turmeric to get the same yellow color. If you decide to splurge on a tiny bit of saffron, which is how it’s sold, it will keep in a tightly sealed jar for at least two years. Hey, you only live once. Take a risk, but for the taste-faint-of-heart, I warn you, saffron has a unique, albeit fabulous, taste.

I suggest that you make this dish your own. It can easily be altered to cater to your taste preferences without any changes in the cooking times. For instance, we like foods spicy so we add either Tabasco or Frank’s Original Hot Sauce to our paella.

If you’d prefer to forego the seafood or the sausage, by all means do so. I’ve even made completely vegetarian paellas that were delicious and chock-full of vegetables, including artichoke hearts and sugar snap peas. The main thing is to cook the rice together with the other ingredients in the oven so that the flavors meld. This recipe is made with brown rice, which takes a bit longer to cook but has a wonderful texture.

My mother used to make a huge pan of paella whenever she had a crowd over for dinner. (She also made a killer jambalaya.) It’s perfect for entertaining because people can serve themselves what they want right from the pot.

OK, so this is a bit labor-intensive by American microwave-and-eat standards, but it goes together quickly and once it’s in the oven it’s a no-brainer. Whining is not allowed on hungry poodle.

Serve the paella sprinkled with parsley and lemon wedges. All you need is a great salad and some Spanish wine.

1 lb. shrimp (21/25 count), peeled and deveined
6 garlic colves, minced
1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken thighs, trimmed of excess fat and halved crosswise
1 red bell pepper, seeded and cut lengthwise into 1/2″ wide strips
8 oz. Spanish chorizo or linguica, sliced 1/2″ thick on the bias
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 can (14 1/2 ounces) diced tomatoes, drained, minced, and drained again
2 cups long-grain brown rice
3 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1/3 cup dry white wine
1/2 teaspoon saffron threads, crumbled
1 bay leaf
1 dozen mussels, scrubbed and debearded
1/2 cup frozen green peas, thawed
Chopped parsley
1 lemon, cut into wedges, for serving

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Toss shrimp with 1/4 t. salt, black pepper and 1 t. of the minced garlic. Set aside. Season chicken thighs with salt and pepper.

Heat 2 t. of oil in a large Dutch oven an add red bell peppers. Cook, stirring occasionally, until their skins begin to blister and turn black. Transfer peppers to a small plate.

Add another teaspoon of oil to the pot and add the chicken pieces. Brown on both sides. Transfer to a bowl and add the chorizo to the now-empty pot. Cook until well-browned. Place in the bowl with the chicken.

Add the onion to the pot and cook until softened; stir in the remaining garlic. Stir in the tomatoes and cook about 3 minutes. Add the rice and coat it well with the tomato mixture. Stir in the chicken broth, wine, saffron, bay leaf and 1/2 t. salt. Bring to a boil, cover the pot and place in the oven.

Cook for 30 minutes. Remove the pot and add the chicken and chorizo, pushing them down into the rice mixture. Replace lid and transfer to oven. Cook another 15 minutes. Remove from oven and add the shrimp. Insert the mussels into the rice hinged-side down so that they stand upright; arrange the red bell peppers in a pinwheel pattern and scatter peas over top. Cover and return to oven and cook until shrimp are opaque and mussels have opened, about 12 minutes.

Allow paella to stand, covered, for several minutes. Discard any mussels that don’t open and remove bay leaf. Sprinkle with parsley and serve with lemon wedges and hot sauce.

Serves: 6

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Why don’t more people roast chicken at home? Is it because plastic-wrapped, rotisseried (and overdone) birds are readily available at the supermarket? Or is it because we’re all so very busy, running around like chickens with our heads cut off? It may be a combination of both, plus the fact that many of us never learned the basics of cooking, which, while too bad, is not irreparable.

Costco sells what many people consider to be the perfect roast chicken. But when I checked the sodium count for their tasty bird, I found it to have an astonishing 460 mg. of sodium for a mere three ounces of meat. That’s Costco value for you–you buy a chicken and they toss in the salt lick for free.

Look, even if you don’t claim to be a cook, it’s not difficult to roast a chicken at home. All it takes is a good chicken (I buy free-range), some herbs if you have them, a lemon and olive oil and some balsamic vinegar to splash on at the end.

1 3-to-3 1/2 lb. chicken
1 lemon
1 onion, chopped coarsely
2 carrots, chopped coarsely
fresh herbs (I cut a combination of thyme, rosemary and sage, but you can use any or all of these)
olive oil
salt and pepper
balsamic vinegar

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Dry chicken thoroughly and salt liberally inside and out. I use a tablespoon of kosher salt, which sounds like a lot but isn’t. Also sprinkle with black pepper. Cut a lemon in half and stuff it inside the along with the fresh herbs. Tie its legs together to keep everything inside. Lightly coat with olive oil (you can spray it on with an olive oil sprayer) and place atop chopped vegetables in a pan just large enough to hold the bird.

Place 1/4 cup of water in the bottom of the pan and place it into the oven. Roast for about 55 to 60 minutes, or until an instant-read thermometer reads 160 degrees when placed into the breast or 165-170 degrees in the thigh. (If you’re roasting a bigger bird, from 4 to 4 1/2 lbs., it will take about 60 to 65 minutes.) If you don’t have an instant-read thermometer, the juices from the leg should run clear when pierced. Just try not to overcook it; if it’s dry, overcooked chicken you want, buy it at the supermarket.

Remove from the oven and baste all over with balsamic vinegar. This gives the bird a beautiful brown color and lots of wonderful flavor. Cover with foil and allow to rest for 15 to 20 minutes.

Slice and serve with more balsamic vinegar. You can also squeeze on the lemon from inside its tummy if you like lemony chicken.

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Make these for the 4th and stick little American flag toothpicks in them to keep them from toppling over!

Our quintessential national holiday, the 4th of July, requires all-American fare, but in recent years I’ve forgone grilling hamburgers in favor of less fat-filled entrees such as chicken. I wrote a blog a few months back about being chickened out. Never truer words were written.

Enter the slider, until recently a restaurant/bar treat that you can now make at home thanks to Sara Lee’s new (to me, anyway) Mini Buns. which have only 90 calories. There might be other brands of minis out there as well; they’re all basically meant to be used to make less gargantuan sandwiches.

I’m back in the burger business, although in a continued effort to keep it healthy, I’ve used ground turkey here instead of beef. You can certainly use ground beef if you choose.

This recipe is adapted from the Weight Watchers web site; their recipe makes regular-sized burgers using ground chicken (and you already know how I feel about that). Each of these little burgers has about 3 ounces of meat, a fat slice of home-grown tomato and romaine, some spiced-up barbeque sauce and a few blue cheese crumbles, which give them a buffalo sort of kick. Yum.

1 lb. 93% lean ground turkey
1/4 cup dry bread crumbs, plain
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
1/2 t. salt
1/4 cup barbeque sauce
1 t. hot pepper sauce (I like Frank’s)
5 slices ripe tomato
Romaine lettuce
5 slider buns
2 T. blue cheese, crumbled*

In a small bowl combine barbeque sauce with hot pepper sauce. In a large mixing bowl combine turkey with bread crumbs, onion, salt and a tablespoon of the barbeque sauce mixture. Using wet hands, form into 5 patties; brush the tops of the patties with some of the remaining barbeque sauce.

Place burgers on grill sauce side down; brush top with remaining sauce. When you turn the burgers over, place the slider buns on the grill to toast them a bit.

To serve, place a burger onto each bun and top with a slice of tomato, some lettuce and a few crumbles of the blue cheese. I spread my blue cheese on the top of the bun.

*Don’t like blue cheese? Goat cheese works just as well. Or you can always default to cheddar.

Makes 5 burgers

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You can find hoisin sauce in the Asian section of almost any supermarket, but the best brand, which you can only get at Asian markets, is Koon Chun (pictured elsewhere on the blog). If you’ve ever had Moo Shu Pork in a Chinese restaurant and spread your moo shu pancake with a dark, thick, delicious sauce, that was hoisin!

Following is a recipe adapted from Bon Appetit that can serve either as an appetizer or an entree, depending on the size of bamboo skewers you use. (The shorter ones fit perfectly on small appetizer plates.)

I grilled these and pulled them off their skewers onto a bed of thinly shredded Napa cabbage and served them with a refreshing Asian-inspired cucumber salad and steamed broccoli. BTW, I took the picture before sprinkling the plate with sesame seeds.

Reserve some of the cucumber dressing and drizzle it on the broccoli!

1/4 cup hoisin sauce*
1 T. minced fresh ginger
1 T. Asian sesame oil*
1 T. unseasoned rice vinegar*
2 skinless, boneless chicken breasts, cut into 1″ pieces
1 T. sesame seeds

*Can be found in the Asian section of the supermarket. The vinegar can also be found with the other vinegars.

Whisk together hoisin sauce, ginger, sesame oil and rice vinegar in a medium bowl. Transfer two tablespoons of this mixture to another bowl to use as a basting sauce. Place the chicken in the remaining sauce and allow to marinate for a few minutes.

Place chicken onto bamboo skewers that have been soaked in water (to prevent them from burning), leaving 1/2″ space between pieces. Grill until browned on both sides, about 8 to 10 minutes, basting chicken as needed. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and serve.

Serves: 2

Cucumber Salad

1/4 cup seasoned rice vinegar
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon Asian sesame oil
1 large English (seedless) cucumber, thinly sliced

Combine first four ingredients and stir until sugar is dissolved. Pour dressing over cucumber slices just before serving. I also used some of this dressing for the steamed broccoli and served it at room temperature as a salad. Very refreshing and summery.

Serves: 2

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So when my (excellent) Jazzercise instructor, Jenny, told me about a lighter recipe that she found in Martha Stewart’s magazine, “Everyday Food”, I was eager to try it. It’s been at least 15 years since my last taste of chicken pot pie and I was hoping to end the drought.

This version, which uses frozen phyllo sheets in place of pie crust, really fits the bill of real, honest-to-goodness chicken pot pie. It’s creamy and loaded with chunks of chicken and vegetables, it has a crispy topping and it’s the kind of comfort food that warms the soul as well as the body. As Martha says, “It’s a good thing.”

By the way, as we were enjoying this last night, we chatted about other vegetables we could add in future renditions. Chopped broccoli would work, even asparagus. Use your imagination and whatever you have on hand in the fridge or freezer.

One more tip, Cooking Light Magazine often uses Pillsbury pie crusts in their recipes, which is an option here in place of phyllo dough. It would add more fat and calories to the recipe, but the total increase would be minimal.

Here are leftovers from last night's dinner. Slightly drier but still delicious!

2 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, 12 to 14 ounces each, cooked and cut into chunks
2 T. Olive oil
4 carrots, sliced
1 small onion, finely chopped
1/4 t. dried thyme leaves ( I used poultry seasoning)
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 1/2 cups low-fat (1%) milk
1 10-oz. package frozen peas, thawed
2 T. fresh lemon juice
6 frozen phyllo sheets, thawed*

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Heat the olive oil in large saucepan and add carrots, onion and thyme. Cook until carrots are crisp-tender, about 8 minutes. Add the flour and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Gradually add the milk, stirring constantly, until smooth. Cook until mixture comes to a simmer and thickens.

Remove from heat and stir in peas, lemon juice and chicken. Season with salt and pepper to taste and pour filling into a 9″ deep-dish pie pan or a square pan.

Stack the phyllo sheets and using a paring knife cut them into a shape that fits the pan you are using. Place two of the cut sheets on a work surface and either brush them with a bit of olive oil or spray them with an oil mister. Repeat with remaining sheets and then stack them over the filling. Press down about 1/2 inch from the edge so the dough fits inside the rim of the pan. Bake until golden and bubbling, about 20 to 25 minutes. Let cool for about 15 minutes before serving.

Serves: 4

*The maker of Athens Phyllo sheets recommends removing the thawed phyllo you need for your recipe, then re-rolling and re-wrapping the remainder in plastic and refreezing for up to 9 months.

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I used to make oven-fried chicken with dried bread crumbs mixed with seasonings and parsley. It was passable, but it didn’t have the crispy texture of real fried chicken. Thus I relegated it to my “healthy-but-not-as-good-as-the-original” list of recipes, of which I have many. I don’t make them often for obvious reasons. Why bother?

My favorite place to turn for the best way to cook anything is Cooks Illustrated. They experimented with all the usual oven-fried chicken toppings,  including crushed corn flakes, Ritz crackers, even Japanese panko bread crumbs, and came up with an unlikely winner–plain Melba Toast.

It makes sense when you think about it. Melba Toast is very crunchy, has no fat and doesn’t have a distinct flavor that would mask the taste of the chicken. I was very pleasantly surprised with the outcome.

The original recipe calls for 4 bone-in, split and skinned chicken breasts, about 10 ounces each. I used chicken tenders because they can be eaten with the fingers, which makes them way more fun for both adults and kids. Use your favorite dipping sauce for them. I like barbeque sauce.

One more tip: this is a middle-of-the-road  spice blend. If you really like spicy, add more cayenne. Be sure to liberally salt and pepper the chicken before coating it.

1 (5 oz.) box plain Melba Toast, broken into small pieces
2 T. vegetable oil
3 large egg whites
1 T. Dijon mustard
2 t. fresh thyme leaves, minced (or 1 t. dried)
1/4 t. garlic powder
1/8 t. cayenne pepper
2 lbs. skinless chicken tenders*
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil spray (Pam also works)

Preheat oven to 450 degrees and adjust rack to upper-middle position. Cover a baking sheet with foil and place a wire rack on top.

Process Melba Toast in a food processor into coarse crumbs. Spread the crumbs in a shallow dish and toss with the oil.

In a separate dish, whisk together the egg whites, mustard, thyme, garlic powder and cayenne.

Pat the chicken dry with paper towels and season with salt and pepper. Using tongs (you can use your hands but it’s messy), dip one piece of chicken at a time into the egg white mixture, then coat with the Melba crumbs. Press the crumbs onto the chicken to make sure they adhere. Lay the chicken on the wire rack and spray the tops with olive oil spray.

Bake until the coating is golden and the chicken is no longer pink in the center, about 12 to 15 minutes.

(If you’re using bone-in split chicken breasts, bake as long as 40 minutes, or until an instant read thermometer reads 160 degrees.)

Serves: 8

*I haven’t tried this yet, but you can also use this coating for fish, including catfish, tilapia and cod. If the pieces of fish have thin tapered ends, tuck them under before breading them to prevent them from overcooking. Bake at the same temperature, 450 degrees, until the coating is golden and the fish just flakes apart, about 12 to 15 minutes. Serve with lemon wedges.

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