Buffalo Chicken Finger Salad with Blue Cheese Dressing

In college I lived on chicken wings.  Juicy, fatty, crispy little bits of deliciousness, covered in Buffalo wing sauce.  I was in the camp that wings should not be breaded - they should just be fried plain.  And yet somehow, I also liked 'boneless wings' served at the Wings Over X chain (insert multiple Northeastern cities for X) which, despite my proximity to Buffalo, seemed to take hold as an acceptable name and menu item.  A boneless wing?!  What the heck is that?  Do they mean a deboned wing, which would be a tiny lump of chicken skin, a whole bunch of fat, and about 0.1 ounces of actual meat?  Or perhaps a chicken finger, which is what it really was?  Oh well, you can't argue with people on things like this, although I frequently try.

'Boneless wings', AKA chicken fingers

Usually a conduit for various sauces, these 'boneless wings' were in reality heavily breaded chicken tenders, steeped in any of a number of different liquids or spice blends.  More often than not, the sauces were the best part, with tantalizing names like honey mustard, spicy teriyaki, and golden BBQ sticking in memory.  Trying to recreate these for me has been like trying to catch a butterfly in a tornado - you know you're probably close to your target, but you're pretty sure it's never going to happen.

I've decided it's time to crack this nut - both in how to make a good chicken finger, and how to make these dipping / tossing sauces.  As a start, I ran out and bought 40 pounds of chicken tenders.  Most of these have been frozen so I can time release their awesomeness.  But the first batch went towards my first chicken fingers attempt, and then into a standard (although excellent) Buffalo sauce recipe.  Though it wasn't the style I was shooting for, I liked these a lot, and they got incredible marks from my guests.  So I thought I would share them with all of you.  Note: these are NOT my New Year's double breaded wings, for the friends who are reading this and want to recreate them.  That recipe is still being tweaked, and will be posted shortly.


Buffalo Chicken Tender Salad with Blue Cheese Dressing

Serves 4

• 1/2 cup white flour
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tablespoon water
• 2 cups panko
• 10 chicken tenders
• at least 1 quart frying oil, either vegetable, canola, or peanut
• salt, in an easy to dispense shaker

• 1 large head lettuce, preferably butter or Romaine (or, if you're boring, iceberg)
• 1 large tomato, sliced
• 1/2 large red onion, sliced very thinly into rings
• 1 avocado, sliced
• 1/2 pound roasted asparagus
• 1 large carrot, shredded
• 1 medium cucumber, sliced
• 1/8 pound sharp cheddar cheese, grated

Before we even start, you should know that you need a few pieces of equipment to even consider this.  First, a heavy pot or electric fryer.  Second, a good frying thermometer or digital thermometer reading up to at least 400 F.  Third, a metal mesh 'spider' for removing and turning the chicken pieces.  And fourth, a decent amount of counter space.

First off, get yourself organized.  I have been frying many things for many years, and if you're not set up and ready to both get things into and out of your frying vessel, you will make mistakes, possibly including burning yourself and those around you.  This means clearing the counter, considering how you're going to pre-treat your chicken, and determining what happens to them afterwards.  For this recipe, I'm going with a standard three-phase breading, so I laid that out on one side of the pot, and then had my drain plate and seasonings ready on the other side of the pot.  Sanitary, efficient, and workable by two people - smashing.

The 'raw' side of the house

The 'cooked' side of the house.

Now, consider your vessel.  Notice that I didn't say your fryer, even though I do have a pretty epic fryer.  You CAN buy a fancy electric number that precisely controls the temperature.  But if you just don't have the space, a heavy pot at least 3 times deeper than the oil level you plan to use will be just great.  Why so deep? Because of a few things - first, the oil will expand when you heat it.  Second, the oil level will rise when you put things in.  Third, this is going to bubble and splatter, and the taller the walls of the pot, the less mess you will end up with.

Note the vast amount of space I have left in the pot.  I actually used so little oil that I was really pan-frying these, and I had to flip them part way through cooking.

Finally, consider your breading method and sauces.  I mentioned the three-phase.  What is that?  It's a very common method for breading meats (and vegetables - consider eggplant Parmesan) consisting of flour, an egg wash, and then breadcrumbs.  Here I use panko, a delicious coarse Japanese bread crumb made by pushing stale bread through a series of mesh screens.  Highly recommended if you can get a big bag cheaply from the Asian grocery store.  Also of note, I seasoned my flour slightly with some cayenne pepper, salt, and black pepper, but only just a little.  A lot of that gets wasted anyway since you don't use all the flour, so I would recommend seasoning the meat directly.  For the egg wash, take your eggs and the water and beat together to form a uniform consistency.  Arrange in the order shown in the picture above.

To prepare, heat your oil to 350 F, get your sauce ready on the other end (recipe follows), and bread half of your tenders.  Toss chicken in the flour, try to let the egg wash drip off when you dunk them in there for a second, then roll lightly but thoroughly in the panko (the chicken, not you).  You can either put them directly in the oil, or finish the lot one or two at at time, letting them sit on a rack for a second while you get them all ready.

Once ready, put your chicken in the oil, and boost the flame so the oil temperature doesn't drop too much.  You're looking to stay in the 325 - 350 range the whole time.  If you're deep frying, just give the tenders a nudge every once in a while so they cook evenly.  If pan-frying (not fully submerged), turn them when the edges seem browned and the fingers start bubbling a bit more slowly.  Just turn them once.  Keep your eye on the temperature, making sure you don't get too high or too low.

The completed and draining fingers, before saucing

When the fingers are done, remove to a plate lined with paper towels or a rack over a baking sheet, and season with salt immediately.  Place each finger in the Buffalo sauce and toss to coat.  Then serve over your salad, which I leave to you to create.

A Buffalo chicken finger salad with homemade dressing.

Buffalo Wing Sauce

• 8 tablespoons Louisiana hot sauce (Frank's is the brand used in Buffalo)
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter or margarine
• 1 1/2 tablespoons white vinegar
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• salt to taste

To prepare, melt butter in microwave or on stovetop.  Stir ingredients together in a large bowl.

 

Here's the sauce, with a couple of fingers going for a quick swim.  It doesn't look healthy, but that's because it isn't.  But man, is it good.

Blue Cheese Dressing

• 1/2 cup regular mayonnaise
• 1/3 cup sour cream
• 1 tablespoon milk
• 3 oz blue cheese
• 1/2 tablespoon wine vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• few grinds black pepper
• 1/2 tsp sugar (optional, to taste)

To prepare, stir ingredients together in a large bowl.  Will keep in the fridge for at least a week.

Kokkinisto (Greek Braised Red Lamb with Tomatoes)

This year, Christmas Eve was spent cooking, taking pictures, and frantically trying to scribble down a surprise recipe that I would be proud to call the best lamb recipe I have ever made.  I think I need to just start following my brother around and taking notes on everything he does.  When I showed up yesterday to help make dinner, he was making two boneless legs of lamb into a dish that didn't sound quite my style.  So I asked if I could set one aside to do something different.  And while I'm rummaging around in my recipe folder for a lamb recipe, he just busts this one out off the top of his head, rivaling the best Greek restaurant lamb dish I've ever tried.  After thinking about it for the duration of the cooking process, he finally goes, "it's called kokonisto or something".  So we looked it up, and sure enough, there's a dish called kokkinisto, and even without a recipe he basically nailed it.  It's a braised meat dish (kokkinisto means "reddened" in Greek, I believe) cooked in tomato, and often with red wine, and just a tiny hint of cinnamon to accentuate the spiced flavors.  Usually lamb is used, but I found recipes for beef and chicken on the web as well.

Kokkinisto - braised lamb in a tomato sauce.  OMG.

I present the recipe as I will make it moving forward, just adding some red wine and serving over orzo, a rice-shaped pasta that really helps hold the sauce and is a traditional accompaniment in Greek restaurants.  But this was excellent on its own, and I devoured every bite, excited to make this again at my house.  And you should make it in yours.

Bay Rum Aftershave

Witch Hazel - let's talk about it.  Have you ever bought any?  Do you know what it's for?  Did you think it's just some kind of weird old lady remedy for long-forgotten diseases, like scurvy, consumption, and the grippe?  If you answered 'yes' to these, read on.

No so long ago, I got my first straight razor shave.  Afterwards, the barber had all kinds of bottles of homemade tinctures, and he splashed some on my face and sent me on my way.  Well, I was bound and determined to find out what that was all about, and I think I narrowed it down to a couple of things - holy water, hyena mucous, or some kind of witch hazel mixture.  Figured maybe I'd start with the witch hazel one.

Witch-hazel is a deciduous shrub or small tree, and the leaves and bark are then made into witch hazel.  This was used by Native Americans for many years, having astringent properties used for everything from treating bug bites to curing hemorrhoids.  Frequent on the list of uses is in aftershave products.

Excited to use a product I've never tried, that also claims to prevent "sweating of the face", I ran out and bought a bottle, and tried using it straight.  Well, bad news - this stuff smells fairly odd in raw form, somewhere between rubbing alcohol and raw sweet potatoes.  So I went back and discovered that people using it as the base of aftershave, not exclusively.  I found a few recipes, merged them and added a few things, and this is the first attempt I made at an aftershave with a witch hazel base.  The result?  A spiced yet mellow concoction that I think smells suspiciously like Old Spice, but much more toned down.  It was a bay rum scent, literally made from bay and rum (and some other stuff).

Mystery vials - they look pretty cool next to my bathroom sink

This is witch-hazel, the plant from which the product of the same name is made.

Bay Rum Aftershave

• 2 cups of witch hazel extract
• 1 ounce of rum
• zest from one orange
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 3-5 cloves
• 3-5 whole allspice
• 2 bay leaves, dry or fresh (or bay essential oil, if you have it)
• Mason jar

Place all ingredients in the glass jar, seal, and place in a dark spot for two weeks.

How the heck are these things going to work together?

...oh, I see.  Put them in a jar and make them play nice.

After the two weeks, filter through cheesecloth once or twice, and transfer to a small bottle.  Apply after shaving or use as an astringent.

After two weeks and some gentle shaking occasionally, the scents mellow significantly

Filter through cheesecloth

Transfer to a small bottle and use as you would aftershave

If you would like to go all out, add a half teaspoon each of aloe vera and glycerin, to really make your skin feel amazing afterwards.  I didn't have either of these, but I will invest for the next batch.  New recipes to follow!

Crispy Chicken Thighs in Mushroom Cream Sauce

As you may know, sometimes out of accidents amazing things are born.  I cite here vulcanized rubber, penicillin, Coca-Cola, teflon, and this chicken recipe.  I tried to make a dish from Jacques Pepin's Fast Food My Way calling for a quick cooked chicken thigh in a very fast mushroom pan sauce, but I tried to cut too many corners and came up with something that, while looking unappetizing, tasted amazing.  So I took it a step further and turned it into a cream sauce, preserving the cooking technique for the chicken and the sauce but adding a few steps and ingredients.  I was amazed with the results, which were still easy and amazingly delicious.  The mushroom cream sauce is on par with the best cream of mushroom soup I've ever eaten, just FYI.

You can make either the chicken, the sauce, or both, and any part of this will be great.  I had never seen this technique for cooking chicken, which is strange on at least two levels, but it really works.  I will definitely be using it in the future.  And while I'm not sure how he even figured it out, I will say that Jacques is a miracle worker of quick-cooked food techniques.

Cranberry Oatmeal Pancakes

Let me temper this recipe with a caveat - I'm not a huge fan of pancakes.  I feel like people who love pancakes are basically ready to stab their own mother for just one more hit of maple syrup-soaked cake goodness, and somehow they can devour a whole plate of these things without batting an eye.  I, on the other hand, usually get through about 3 bites of pancake before I'm ready to walk away in need of something with a bit more flavor.  Unless they're really good, which they most often are not, pancakes are just kind of vanilla.

In stark contrast to your average pancake recipe, I found a very bizarre-sounding recipe in a Vitamix blender cookbook, of all places.  It called for different flours, the use of oats, seeds, and berries, and generally all healthy stuff.  And since I don't think many of you have a Vitamix, or pore over the recipe book it came with if you do, I'm going to repost it here, with slight variations (I don't have a Vitamix either, is the weird part).  I thought this was really good, had an interesting consistency, and was rather healthy by pancake standards.  Also, with minimal tweaking I believe this is a gluten-free dish, but I can't back that up. 

These pancakes have all kinds of surprises inside - seeds, oats, and cranberries.  It's like a piñata for your mouth

Cranberry Oatmeal Pancakes
From: Vitamix blender cookbook

Yield: 10-12 pancakes
Total Time: 25 Minutes

• 1.5 cups milk, soy milk, rice milk, or almond milk (I used rice milk)
• 1 large egg
• 2 tbsp light olive oil or vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup (60 g) uncooked, rolled oats
• 1.25 cups (150 g) whole wheat flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup (26 g) flax seed meal
• 1/4 cup (30 g) dried cranberries
• 2 tablespoons (15 g) unsalted sunflower seeds

Not your average pancakes!  This is kind of the royal family of pancake ingredients, including flax meal, a very  interesting nutty product made from ground whole flax seeds

Place milk, egg, oil and ¼ cup (20 g) rolled oats (NOT ALL OF THEM!!!) into a blender or food processor bowl.  Blend / chop / whatever you've got on medium speed for about 20 seconds to incorporate.

I didn't know if my food processor would properly pulverize the oats, but there was so little compared to the amount of liquid that this was no problem

In a large bowl, combine the remaining oats, flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and flax meal, stirring to combine.

Crazy pancakes - when a big bowl of white flour just won't do.  Clockwise from top: salt, baking powder, oats, flax meal, whole wheat flour

Add the wet to the dry.  The order matters!

Pour wet mixture into the dry ingredients and mix gently by hand to combine.  Stir in the dried cranberries and sunflower seeds.  Allow mixture to set for 10 minutes before cooking.

Fold in the seeds and berries, and let this sit for a few minutes.  You want the double acting baking powder to act once, creating air bubbles that will give you a nice fluffy product before cooking.  The second 'act' of the baking powder happens when you heat it.

I found that this batter was a bit thick, so you can dilute with a bit more milk if you like thinner pancakes.  Cook in melted butter on a skillet, ideally one of the electric variety, until bubbles around the edges start to set.  Flip and cook for another couple of minutes.

Look for the bubbles around the edges to set up

To serve, I would use a berry-based syrup such as boysenberry or blueberry.  Or if you really want to drive home that you're eating something different, use cranberry sauce!

Crunchy, nutty cranberry oatmeal pancakes.  Treat your body to a healthy breakfast.