Foodie: Chicken Fingers

Hobby of the day: Cooking

I love chicken fingers, but I rarely get them since they are usually appetizers or part of the kids meal.  I do also like fried chicken, but I eat that sooo rarely that when I do eat it my tummy kills after....maybe it's more than just eating it infrequently that hurts me. We don't have a fryer at home. I have a friend who has two, I think if I had one I would experiment frying all sorts of goodies. One that I would love to try is fried feta wrapped in phyllo dough. I saw it once on Giada when she was in Greece.  Sounds yummy, actually any fried cheese sounds fabulous.  I think it's on the Travel Channel where they have Hamburger Paradise and Fast Food Paradise. They had one that was Deep Fried *insert drool here*  There is a place here in Alexandria VA that does deep friend candy bars and of course fairs have deep fried oreos and Twinkies and peanut butter cups. Oddly enough in the 7 years we have lived here we have never gone there.  After my Lent fast is over I am going. Haha...

I made chicken fingers with panko bread crumbs- yum, super crispy and they are baked, not fried.  I didn't have any chicken tenders and didn't want to buy more chicken when we already had some frozen, so I just chopped up the chicken breasts. I am not a big fan of handling raw meat I don't like the feel of it and don't feel like I really clean off the salmonella- ha. So I used tongs to hold the chicken and chopped it with a knife, so no hands touching of the chicken.  

Sorry if you don't like the look of raw chicken.

I dipped the chicken first in the flour mixture, which consisted of salt and pepper.  Then dipped it in the egg whites( no yolks to make it healthier) and then finally in the panko bread crumbs to which I had added Parmesan cheese, garlic powder and a little cayenne. I made sure that the whole little finger got fully covered then laid it on the cookie sheet. 

 

 Before putting into the oven I sprayed the tops of the fingers with Pam to help with browning. I flipped the fingers half way through and sprayed the other sides. Bake at 475 for 10-12 minutes, or until cooked. 

 

And....Voila! Crispy little fingers!

 I added the fingers to a pasta side- I heart pasta. I ran out of my favorite, angel hair pasta, so I mixed that with regular spaghetti which wasn't too bad if I do say so myself. I don't mind mixing pastas, sometimes it gives it a little more texture.  To the pasta I added Parmesan cheese, and Italian bread crumbs. I know right?! Weird, but it gave it a nice flavor almost creamy like, if it's too think add a little extra pasta water. 

 

Nothing like having a few condiments. We have BBQ sauce, Ranch dressing, Frank's Red Hot, extra Parmesan cheese and Gary's favorite, horseradish sauce (frown on that).