Sunday, July 10, 2005
Recipe: Oatmeal Fried Chicken Chunks (CORRECTED 8:32 PM July 15)
Speaking of cooking, I have a recipe for fried chicken chunks with oatmeal coating, which is an improvement on my old recipe for oatmeal fried chicken strips. This can be used for strips rather than chunks, or for whole pieces. The spice mix can be changed. The big improvements have been in grinding the oatmeal, simplifying the process, and using Crisco only for the frying - no butter mixed in. I’ve also been using my cast iron pan lately.
The spice mix is mellow with a slight after kick to it. It’s easy to vary to taste, spicier or less so. The chunks made with a plain coating, or one flavored mainly with ginger, might make a good basis for an orange chicken or General Gao’s/Tso’s chicken. Indeed, I’d love a good recipe for both of those sauces, especially the orange as it’s the primary kind of Chinese food Deb likes.
This seems to keep well as leftovers in the fridge, and is good cold. Sadie loves it. It’s also a good recipe for stretching the chicken, as the resulting volume after coating and frying seems far more than the volume of raw chicken would imply.
2 boneless chicken breasts
1 cup Bisquick
2 cups oatmeal
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
dash of onion powder
1/8 teaspoon celery salt
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
3/4 teaspoon red pepper
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 1/2 cups flour
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
Cut the chicken into chunks. Strips or larger pieces could work if you prefer.
To make the oatmeal coating, combine oatmeal, Bisquick, and spices in a food processor. Grind fine, mixing thoroughly in the process. Put the resulting coating on a plate.
On another plate, spread out the flour for pre-coating. The amount of flour is a bit high and could be reduced or would work unchanged for larger quantities.
In a bowl, beat together the milk and eggs.
Heat oil in a frying pan on low to medium heat. I’ve found this comes out better done on lower heat for a longer time. I like Crisco, and a covered pan. When I do it, the oil comes somewhere between halfway and almost all the way to the top of the chicken chunks, which I turn over when they seem to be crisp on the bottom. I tend to cook them a very long time to ensure the chicken is quite well cooked and the coating is reasonably crispy.
Coat the chicken with the flour thoroughly, giving a dry base for the egg mix to soak into.
Dip the chicken in the egg mix, soaking it.
Cover the wet chicken in the oatmeal coating, which should stick pretty well.
Place the coated chicken into the hot oil. In my cast iron pan I can only put half at a time, so we end up sampling the first batch while the second batch cooks.
Again, the spices and some of the other details can be varied. It’s a bit of trouble to go to compared to some dishes, but is fantastically good, to the point where Deb craves and requests it regularly. Since I make it regularly and have the process relatively streamlined, it’s not that troublesome.
Update:
I made a typo when I entered the recipe from my paper notes. The correct amount of oatmeal was supposed to be two cups, not one cup as originally published. Sorry!