Secret Ingredient Breaded Chicken

Last night I had decided to cook chicken for dinner. I had some chicken tenderloins and wanted a quick tasty meal from them.

I opened my pantry and tried to let inspiration flow from within… not a lot flowed… But then I saw a new packet of Panko Breadcrumbs and thought that perhaps I should crumb the chicken.

Trouble is that crumbed chicken really needs a bit of resting time after you’ve crumbed it for the coating to “set” enough so that it doesn’t fall off when you cook it. – Isn’t that so frustrating when you spend time and get your fingers covered in eggy breadcrumbs just to have the crumbs fall off when you cook the chicken?

Additionally i fancied something a little tastier than regular crumbed chicken anyway.. so what to do….

Then it struck me – Sitting on the shelf next to the breadcrumbs was a new jar of mayonnaise. –

“Well “ I thought “It will either be fantastic, or disgusting  but I’m going to give it a go.

So into the bowl went about half a cup ( or so) of mayonnaise, and to that I added my spices. Now here you could completely use your imagination. If you have a favourite spice mix or dry marinade rub – add that – I made up a mix that Ive used with chicken in the past which includes brown sugar,Smoked Paprika, Black Pepper, Coriander, Mustard Powder, Garlic, Chili and Turmeric

(See below for quantities to make it in bulk)

I added about 2 tablespoons of the mix to the mayonnaise and mixed it up and then added the chicken and stirred it all around until it was well coated.

The thick mayonnaise really sticks well to the chicken and makes it easy for the breadcrumbs to stay stuck.

I used Panko Breadcrumbs but you could use regular dried breadcrumbs if you wanted.

I decided to pan fry the chicken to see how well the crumbs stuck  ( its when i pan fry that I often find the crumbs stick to the pan and not the chicken despite using a non stick pan)

Anyway – SUCCESS- the crumbs stayed stuck to where they should and the colouring from the spice mix made the chicken a beautiful golden brown ,and whats more the entire family were raving over the chicken.

You could oven bake the chicken instead of pan frying if you wish- in fact after giving my chicken a quick browning on both sides I did put it in the oven to finish off cooking.

I served  my chicken on a salad of rocket ( arugula), halved cherry tomatoes, red pepper and eggplant(which I had cut into long slices and basted with olive oil before putting on my griddle pan to cook) , and asparagus .

Unfortunately I was out of potatoes so had to resort to oven fries ( not my favourite form of potato)

 

Smokey Sticky Chicken Rub Spice Mix

3Tbspn Brown Sugar
3 Tspn Smoked Paprika
3 Tspn Garlic Flakes
2 Tspn Sea Salt
1 Tspn Coriander
1/2 Tspn Mustard Powder or Yellow Mustard Seeds
1/2 Tspn Dried Chilli Powder
1/2 Tspn Turmeric

Mix all together with Mortar and Pestle, or whizz up in spice grinder – Store in airtight container.