Day 9: flourless fried chicken tenders pg 102

This the chickpea flour I bought

I've discovered a new favorite gluten free flour.



 Chickpea flour! It's great! I haven't done much with it so far, but what I have has been great! Sometimes it's called garbanzo flour and you can buy it in the specialty flour section of your supermarket (maybe) or I bought mine at an Indian market right by my house for 3 bucks a 2lb bag! and they had a 4 lb bad for like 5 bucks! Pretty good for gluten free, I'd say. You can also sometimes find it in italian markets.





Flourless fried Chicken Tenders  pg 102 (serves 4)




1 1/2 cups of chickpea flour.
1 1/2 teaspoons of Italian seasoning ( I used Mrs Dash's  garlic & herb seasoning blend... Not necessarily Italian, but good!)
 1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/8 ground red pepper
3/4 cup plus 2 to 4 tbsp water
oil for frying
1 lb chicken tenders cut in half if large

Curry dipping sauce
1/2 cup mayo
1/4 cup sour cream
1/2 tsp curry powder

1. Sift the amazing chickpea flour into a medium bowl. Stir in Italian seasoning, salt, black pepper,  and red pepper. Gradually whisk in 3/4 cup water to make smooth batter. whisk in additional water by the tablespoons if you need it ( I needed about 3 extra tablespoons). You want the consistency to be kind of like heavy whipping cream.

2. While you do all that, have oil heating up in  a large heavy skillet or dutch oven. You want the bottom to have about 3/4 inch of oil. heat it on medium high (more medium than high if you want your chicken tenders to be golden brown not brown brown) heat it until when you drop batter in the oil, it sizzles.
3. pat dry your chicken pieces. dip into batter with tongs and let the excess batter drip off.

 Ease the chicken gently into the hot oil. fry for about 2 to three minutes per side until slightly browned and chicken is cooked through (quick note on that: I was worried that the chicken wasn't going to cook through and it was going to be pink, but fear not, it wasn't! cooked nice a juicy.) Make sure you fry in batches and not crowd all you chicken in the pan. Give them puppies some space!

4. drain the chicken tenders on paper towels. Serve them warm with the curry mayo dipping sauce.


To make the curry mayo sauce-

combine all three ingredients in a bowl and voila! deliciousness at your fingertips!

These were great! I felt so cultural with this curry mayo dipping sauce. It added such a great little kick to these. I felt like I was in India. It probably helped that I had just came from an Indian market complete with the Indian smells and music. But still! These were so great!  The sauce was great but if you're picky or dairy free, I'm sure that ketchup ( or some stolen Chick-Fil-A sauce......).  They are fried so they don't get a billion healthy points but they do get 9 out 10 yummy stars!

Day 1: Cajun Chicken and rice, Pg 180

Confession:

I actually had already started cooking for this like 3 days ago. I just haven't blogged about it. So I cooked this on Wednesday. I know my b. I've just been slightly overwhelmed over the fact that I have to cook and blog about 115 different things this summer. But anyway. here we go. Day 1.

Cajun Chicken and Rice (serves 6)

4 chicken drumsticks, skin removed ( I had six, so I used them all)
4 chicken thighs, skin removed
2 tsp Cajun Seasoning (make sure that you check the ingredients before you buy, a lot of mixes have wheat as a listed ingredient)
3/4 tsp salt
2 Tbsp vegetable oil ( I used olive...)
1 can (14 oz) chicken broth
1 cup uncooked rice (I suggest maybe 1 1/4 cups of rice)
1 med green bell pepper, coarsely chopped
1 med red bell pepper, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup finely chopped green onions
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1 /4 tsp ground turmeric


pre 1. You should probably remove the skin of your chicken before you do anything else, if you haven't already done so or bought them pre-skinned.
1. preheat the oven to 350. lightly coat a 13x9 inch pan with oil or spray.
2. in a big plate or bowl, sprinkle the chicken with the Cajun seasoning and salt. cover them evenly. Heat oil in a large skillet over a med-high heat while you do this (make sure it doesn't start to smoke!). Add the chicken, cook about 10 mins ( give or take). make sure that the chicken gets browned on all the sides. take the chicken out of the skillet.

(quick note: As I reread the recipe right now writing this, I realize that I did this part a little different, woops. it's OK though, I guess it's not that big of a deal. you can do my version or what I should have done. it's up to you. Oh and what I did different was that I didn't take the chicken out of the skillet. I did the next part with the chicken in it)

3.Add broth to skillet, bring to a boil. scrape any brown bits from the bottom of skillet. add in the rice, bell peppers, green onions, garlic, thyme and turmeric. now pour these things in your 13x9 pan you oiled like forever ago.  (if you took the chicken out of the skillet, you can put it back in now, or if you did like me and didn't pour those babies right in there too. Also, make sure that the rice is evenly distributed in the pan, this would have been way easier if I hadn't put the chicken in at the same time). Cover the pan with foil tightly. Bake one hour or until the chicken is cooked through (165 F)

So I gotta say, this recipe is rockin'. It was AMAZING. I ate way too much of it. I'm pretty sure that this is my favorite meal from now on. It was definitely a great way to start this off. My only complain is that the rice was a bit soggy. delicious. But kinda soggy. I would add a bit more rice next time.

I give this recipe 9.5 yummy stars out of 10. If the rice wasn't soggy, I would have given it an 11.