Gluten Free Chicken Fingers

It used to be a pretty safe bet that I would order chicken fingers in a restaurant. With BBQ sauce. Why look at a menu? You know I'm going to order it.

I'm not a fancy person. Gimme a burger, pizza, fries and I'm happy. Pub platters... I'm in heaven. Or I was.

It was a long time before I had chicken fingers again. There is some effort involved but as you'll see, I am set up for months after I make these chicken fingers.


Chicken Fingers

• Boneless chicken breasts
• Buttermilk
• Seasoned flour mix *see below - Flour is just a general GF mixture. 2 parts brown rice flour, 2/3 part potato starch, 1/3 part tapioca starch
• Oil for frying

Seasoned flour mix

• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 1/4 teaspoons fresh ground black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

This was for 2 cups of flour. If you want it spicier, add a little more.
 
Slice each chicken breast into however many pieces that you would like. Chicken tenders, popcorn chicken, chicken cutlets etc. 
Pour enough buttermilk into a bowl to cover the chicken, reserving a small amount (about 1/4 cup) of buttermilk.
Drizzle reserved buttermilk in the seasoned flour and stir lightly so that you see little clumps of flour start to ball up. Just a few are good.
Dredge the chicken breast pieces in the seasoned flour mix.
Let them rest for a few minutes in the mix while the oil preheats to about 375F. 




Time to deep fry some fingers!

When I make them, I prepare them for freezing. I love convenience food. It fits my schedule.
After letting them rest in the flour mix, I put them in the deep fryer at  for about 15 seconds, just long enough for the flour to set and slightly crisp up. Drained them and onto the parchment paper they went and then into the freezer overnight.Then they were bagged and kept in the freezer until needed.

I do small batches so that I can get them into the freezer as soon as I pull them out.

Of course, should you wish to deep fry them all the way, go for it and they probably take about 5-7 minutes until golden brown.

When you're ready to bake them, they'll need about 20 minutes at 350F to bake through.Convection is best or on a rack so the heat will circulate around them.  I use my NuWave oven ( Flavorwave oven)  which is a small convection oven and it takes them about 17 minutes.

 Or..... toss in a homemade buffalo wing sauce. Equal parts butter and hot pepper sauce such as Frank's Red Hot for a medium heat.

Serve with plum or BBQ sauce. Sweet Baby Rays is my choice for a spicy sauce.

Anytime I want chicken fingers, I have them now. I can also prep these as chicken cutlets for chicken parmigiana or breaded chicken burgers etc. I usually wait until chicken is on sale and then slice up some chicken for stir-fries as well. I'll buy a few packages and then prep up all kinds of breaded cuts and just increase the flour and seasoning as need.

 Frozen GF chicken fingers are definitely the way to go for me.

Raclette - October Unprocessed

Raclette? What? What's that? It sounds kind of .... French.

Well it is. Raclette is a semi-firm cow's milk cheese that is really good for melting. The dish began in Switzerland where it was originally left near the fire and it would start to melt and you would scrape ( the verb racler) it onto your plate to eat with items like small potatoes, gherkins, dried meat and bread.


There are 2 types, one that holds a large round of cheese and the other with a grilling top section and then little trays that slide in underneath that broil the cheese.  I wanted the grilling type.

In the summer, I went to a garage sale and they actually had one. Completely unused and they didn't have a clue what it was for. $20 later and it was mine.

My New Grill!!!

Have you ever fondued? Well I suppose this is kind of like that. You cook your own food.
I love fondue.

Anyways, I thought this would be good as October is Unprocessed Month over at Eating Rules and this is full of pure, simple foods.

I'm a mozzarella/cheddar girl and those have to be melted for me to eat them. I don't eat other cheeses except parmesan. I was in Quebec a few weeks ago to visit a friend and they had just had raclette the night before and told me all about it.   We visited the grocery store while I was there so I could pick up some snacks and they had  a ton of sliced fondue meats and also the raclette cheese which I decided to try.

There's no real recipe here.


Cooked food: 
Small potatoes - Steamed/boiled until cooked through. Placed in a bowl lined with a teatowel to keep warm.
Focaccia - I made Annalise Roberts' focaccia. Quick and easy

Raw food:
Shrimp - peeled and tail-off
Thinly sliced chicken breast
Partly steamed broccoli - just to give it a head start
Peppers - thinly sliced
Raclette cheese and mozzarella cheese
Onions - thinly sliced red onion
Ham - thinly sliced
Garlic butter
Parmesan

That's it.

Sit down to enjoy and cook.

Getting ready to move it all to the table

 I know you'll understand but I had to taste the focaccia to see how it turned out. Then I  ummm...had to try it with some olive oil and herbs. Then some olive oil, balsamic and herbs. Then others had to try it. So pardon it's shape  please.

Chicken, broccoli, onions, peppers and cheese

Okay so the focus is off but what do you expect? I have food in front of me. This is garlic buttered focaccia with cheese melted on it.

We had lots of extra trays so we could experiment. You can cook on top of the griddle or half on top/half broiled or fully broiled.

Some raclette ideas: 
Precook some chicken, broccoli, onions and peppers.  Add garlic butter to grill top if you like
Add these items to try and add cheese and broil until melty. Melty is a new word I use in cheese cooking.
Serve with bread.
You could even do it fajita style if you have some corn tortillas.

Ham/Cheese/Focaccia

Garlic butter/focaccia/cheese


Shrimp/garlic butter/cheese - cooked until pink and cheese is melted

The true way: just cheese in the tray and then when it's melty, pour it on warm potatoes.
I did this just after I'd cooked the garlic shrimp so there was still garlic butter in my tray which drizzled on the potatoes. Oh my.
I wasn't expecting much from this. It's cheese. It's potatoes. But wow, cheese and potatoes...YUM!

A big salad started us off with my Greek Salad Dressing and I actually added a little bit ( 1/4-1/2 tsp) xanthan gum to help it stay in more of an emulsified state so it wouldn't separate as easily. Wonderful.

Simple. Pure. Good.

This is what I do on my day off...

So many ingredients for Gluten free bread

My new mixer. What should we name her?

Dan Lepard's Gluten Free White Bread  - resting

Jeanne's (@fourchickens) Sourdough

White Bread Rising!

1 batch of English Muffins in a pan

Making some English Muffins in the skillet

The sourdough WON'T stop growing!

English Muffins - millet, sorghum, brown rice, potato starch, tapioca starch

Oh, how I've missed you...

Holey Bread. So yum.

Can't wait to toast this.

Sourdough monster - I don't have a Dutch oven so I used my high sided round pan

Sourdough - delish with garlic butter

Getting ready to BBQ on the deck

The neighbour dog taking herself for a walk

Chicken Thighs, Grilled Broccoli and Cauliflower, Carrots, Onions, Peppers in Sundried Tomato Basil Pesto

Buffalo Wing and BBQ

Grilled Veggies

Oven Fried Chicken

Dear Colonel Sanders,
I miss you. We used to be friends. Now we are enemies. Your delicious crunchy skin. Salty, greasy fingers. Remember how I would come to visit you? And you would give me buckets of chicken and crisp fries? Oh those were the days....


Last year, I drove through the Southern States, fried chicken capital of the world. Oh how I craved it. Obviously there was no way I could though.

I poured through recipes looking for the best. Cast iron fry pans, well seasoned. Frying lid on, then taking lid off, or maybe it was the other way around.

I had a whole chicken and attempted to cut it into 8 pieces. I've done it before in cooking class many many years ago. I must have failed. That poor chicken. I ended up with the kitchen shears and continued absolutely butchering the chicken.
Which is why I now use chicken drumsticks. Easy and it cooks nicely so you don't have to worry about different sizes, shapes and cooking times.

Easy Oven Fried Chicken

Preheat oven to 400°F .

• 8 chicken legs
• 1/2 cup oil
• 1 1/2 cups of seasoned gluten free flour - I used my regular flour Mix A
• 2-4 tablespoons of butter

Dip the chicken legs in oil or shake in a freezer bag with oil in it.

Transfer to a freezer bag with  seasoned flour and shake until all pieces are covered. I used

• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 1/4 teaspoons fresh ground black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

This was for 2 cups of flour but I found that was a little too much flour, not enough spice.

Carefully take out and let them rest on a platter.Make sure they don't have a really thick coating of flour since you're not really frying them.

In your roasting pan, melt 2-4 tbsp of butter and then carefully place each leg in the hot roasting pan.

After about 35-40 minutes, turn carefully and continue cooking for about 20 minutes or until golden brown all over.

Updated: 10/30/10

I made these again and decided to take a whole bunch of blurry photos for you. 

Apparently I need my eyes checked? 

Eat. Lick Fingers.

Check out more fabulous recipes at Gluten Free Wednesdays 

Swiss Chalet

Sometimes you just want something familiar. When I was on vacation with friends in the Dominican a few years ago, we were chilling in the pool area, having some cocktails and lamenting the lack of familiar food. Granted, the food was great to me to me at least since I've always been a bit of a plain eater.

But the talk soon turned to Swiss Chalet. Rotisserie chicken with chalet sauce with french fries and a soft roll is a classic. We all made plans for a couple of weeks after the trip, to meet there and have dinner once again.


Now I can't eat the exact same thing that I did then but I don't mind. Quarter chicken with white meat, salad with Italian dressing and no bun and I'm a happy camper.


The fries are cooked in oil that sometimes fries other breaded items so I stay far away from that.

But other than that, it's a quick fantastic gluten free meal. Check it out here: Swiss Chalet Allergy Guide