One of the great goals of cooking class is to teach students how to make popular fast foods in a healthier way. Baked Cornflake Chicken is a perfect example of that. It re-creates the flavor and crispiness of foods like KFC, but without the high levels of fat, oil and salt. In this recipe, low-fat healthy cornflakes create the crispiness, and non-salty spices like garlic powder and cayenne pepper replace the salt.

It’s always exciting to see how young chefs respond to this approach, but our class for Week 3 didn’t disappoint.

“It tastes like Popeyes!” Jairo Hernandez exclaimed after taking his first bite into a cornflake drumstick.

Winner, Winner Chicken Dinner!

To add even more healthy ingredients, our Week 3 menu also included a mixture of the greens kale and broccoli rabe, sautéed in fresh garlic and olive oil. The greens provide important minerals and vitamins, and more Vitamin C than oranges!

Cornflake Chicken is a fun recipe to make, because there is a lot of action. Chefs get to smash the cornflakes and spices into bits, whisk the egg and milk coating with fast strokes and then shake the coated chicken fast and hard to coat them for baking.

Our Week 3 chefs loved getting a workout crushing the cornflakes, with techniques ranging from overhead slams to closed fist pounding like professional boxers. Omari Upshur led off with the overhead approach, while Jairo Hernandez, Milton Sanders and John Negron followed with variations on fist-pounding.

With the cornflakes crushed, Omari and Jairo broke off to slice and chop the greens, while John and Milton started dipping and coating the drumsticks for the sheet pan. After the pan went in the oven for baking, Jairo and Milton took charge of “blanching” the greens with a quick dip in hot water and “braising” them in garlic and olive oil in our sauté pan.

“I’m so glad I signed up for cooking class,” Milton said with a smile as he stirred the greens evenly with a wooden spoon.

When the drumsticks came out of the oven, everyone took turns placing them on our bright, white platter to create a display that looked great next to a companion platter of greens.

The meal was a winner — even the greens.

“The greens were kind of lemony, but they were good after you tried them,” Milton said.

“They were sour and lemony, but after I put them on the chicken it tasted good,” Jairo added.

Omari didn’t even need words to describe the chicken. He just formed an O with his fingers and gave it an air kiss.

And what would they tell their friends about cooking class?

“You should join it next year,” Milton said. “It’s fun and you cook fun things.”

“This is definitely an entertaining class,” Omari added.

“It’s adventurous and different,” Jairo said.