Eat Something Good

I really wanted tonight’s pic of dinner to be good. But, well, you’ll read on. I had some chicken tenderloins sitting in the ‘fridge for a little while. I figured I’d better use them before they grew into something. So I searched for a recipe and I stumbled across oven-fried chicken fingers from StarTribune.com. I’ve never heard of this publication so I’m not endorsing it or anything at the moment. So, I served them up with some Potatoes Au Gratin (Emeril’s recipe) and frozen corn. The colors of the meal looked kinda down home. Like it could’ve been fried chicken, mashed potatoes and corn which is a really yummy combo. Read on to see what I did.

For the chicken fingers, I threw together a little mayo and milk and threw the tenderloins in to bathe. In a separate bag, (the directions called for plastic and I didn’t have one handy so I used a brown paper bag and double bagged it), combine cornflakes (original recipe calls for crackers), garlic powder, s & p. Smash it up. Take a few pieces at a time and shake up in bag  with cornflake mixture.   Place on sheet pan that’s been sprayed with oil. Bake at 400F (recipe called for 450 but my potatoes needed 400F hence the compromise.) Corn was just Bird’s Eye and nuked up plain.

The potatoes au gratin. The first & only time I made this dish was at one of our recent holiday dinners. Recent as in last year. Anyway, I thought the flavor was great, but it needed to be thickened more. So tonight I thought my dish was gonna turn out great. But it didn’t look beautiful. Emeril had you make 1/2″ cuts. Way too thick in my opinion. But I followed the directions. I peeled and cut russet potatoes (Emeril called for waxy (red)) into 1/2″ pieces and boiled them up. I made a roux (flour & butter) and added whole milk, freshly grated nutmeg, s & p. I seasoned the potatoes and placed them into a baking dish that’d been greased with butter. I poured the milk mixture over the top and hit it with plenty of grated cheddar & monterey jack cheeses. After cooking, I sprinkled on a little sweet paprika, very little.

The verdict. Though we opted not to take a pic of this meal, it wasn’t that bad of a meal. The chicken fingers were quite good actually. Next time, I’m going to cook it at the directed temperature of 450F. That should do the trick. As for this batch, it had a slight crunch. It wasn’t bad and the mayo & milk mixture flavored the chicken slightly as well as the seasonings in the cornflake mixture.

The potatoes au gratin were not beautiful and they needed some serious salt. As expected, 1/2″ pieces were way too big. Made the dish somewhat less pleasant. Steve wanted browning for the pics that we did not get and therefore a lot of cheese went by the way side. (Snuck in between the cracks.) The taste was good though. It was decent but I’m now on the hunt for a new potatoes au gratin recipe.

Oven-Fried Chicken Fingers
(adapted from the StarTribune.com)

Ingredients:
1 1/4 to 1 1/2 lbs of chicken breast tenderloins
2 c cornflakes
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 c mayonnaise (I used regular Hellmann’s)
1 tbsp milk (I used whole, but can use skim or low-fat)
Cooking Oil spray

Directions:
1) Preheat oven to 450F.

2) Combine cornflakes, garlic powder, black pepper and salt in gallon-size zipper-top plastic bag. Use rolling pin or sturdy drinking glass to crush the cereal and make semi-fine (not too fine).

3) Mix together mayonnaise & milk in a medium sized bowl. Add the chicken to the bowl, and stir until the tenders are evenly coated with the mayo mixture.

4) Add pieces of mayo coated chicken into the bag with the corn flake mixutre and shake gently to coat all of the pieces.

5) Spray a half-sheet pan with cooking spray. Place cornflake coated chicken pieces directly on sheet pan.

6) Bake the chicken, uncovered for about 15 minutes.

I ate mine plain, but you can serve it with a dipping sauce such as barbecue, honey mustard or buffalo sauce. I’d like any of those. Steve ate two plate fulls of dinner and was way full. He enjoyed the chicken fingers though at first he thought he didn’t like them. In the end, he said that they were good with a smile. And I have already promised to bake them at the directed temperature of 450F to make them a little crunchier.  We saved the potatoes au gratin for tomorrow. Steve said he might heat it up tomorrow for a snack. Well, it’s time for me to wrap things up. Just want to say, as always, Eat Something Good!