Survival Sunday 24: BANG BANG CHICKEN

First and foremost, a heartfelt "thank you" is owed to Z's coworker who gave us this recipe. It was wholly unexpected and unbelievably good, and without her, I wouldn't have learned how to fry chicken. Thank you so much, Chelsea!

Even more gratitude needs to be extended to Z, because without my kitchen assistant, I'd never get anything done! Z did a lot of preparations on this one, and he was my panko breader for the assembly line. Z also made sure I didn't panic, found ways to ventilate when I let things get smoky, and kept me from going nuts over food. Thank you so much, Z. You're amazing!

So today we're discussing a dish called "Bang Bang Chicken". It's a fried chicken dish with a hint of spice. I can't wait to make it again!

Ingredients (Sauce):

• 1/4 cup Mayonnaise
• 2 Tbsp Sweet Chili Sauce
• 1 Tbsp Honey
• 2 tsp Hot Sauce

Our blurry, blurry mayo

Sweet Chili Sauce. Our Hot Sauce is in the background, and so is our Honey.
The honey is behind the pepper...

Ingredients (Chicken):

• 1/2 Cup Vegetable Oil or more as needed
• 1 Cup Buttermilk (we used regular milk)
• 3/4 Cup All-Purpose Flour
• 1/2 Cup Cornstarch
• 1 large Egg
• 1 Tbsp Hot Sauce
• Salt & Pepper to taste
• 1 Pound Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breast, cut into 1 inch chunks
• 1 Cup Panko bread crumbs

I wandered around looking like a drug dealer with these three sandwich bags of pale powder...

I promise the oil is in there!

Chicken!

DIRECTIONS:

1) To make the sauce, whisk together MAYONNAISE, SWEET CHILI SAUCE, HONEY, & HOT SAUCE in a small bowl; set aside

Mayo + chili sauce

+ hot sauce

+ honey

Blended! And Delicious!

2) Heat VEGETABLE OIL in a large skillet over medium high heat. [We had to hold off because we didn't have dredging stations - if you have extra hands and plenty of space, then by all means, do this step as advertised! If not, hold off on heating the oil until half of your chicken is coated!]

3) In a large bowl, whisk together BUTTERMILK, FLOUR, CORN STARCH, EGG, HOT SAUCE, SALT & PEPPER.

We had to use regular milk, but buttermilk will taste better.
I have to wonder if nut milks would actually be pretty good, especially cashew or peanut?

Dry into wet!

It... was really thick.

The egg did loosen it up a little, though.

But not by a whole lot.

We could have gone far crazier with our spicy stuff - you could barely taste the spice, unfortunately.

4) Working one at a time, dip chicken into BUTTERMILK MIXTURE, then dredge in PANKO to coat.

I needed more Panko... but this is not bad for two novices working together!

5) Working in batches, add CHICKEN to skillet and cook until evenly golden & crispy - about 2-3 minutes. Transfer to paper towel lined plate.

Our first batch was very lightly crisped because I was terrified of destroying the kitchen and myself.

For the record, you will get spattered, so don't wear a nice shirt and don't fear the burns you'll get.
Take it from a wimp - it sucks but it's not the end of the world.

Second batch was much browner and crispier!

I dig the bright violet light Z's phone gave the stovetop.
In person, the element was bright red!

6) Serve immediately, drizzled with SWEET CHILI SAUCE [this means that nice spicy mayo sauce you made first!]

Doesn't that look good (if blurry)?

It was delicious!

As I mentioned earlier, this was a really fun recipe to make, but you can absolutely crank up the heat all you want! I would like to experiment with other kinds of hot sauce, maybe some sriracha mayo for the sauce base, and I'd try to put some spicy pepper in with the panko as well.

This recipe would probably work well on any meat or meat substitute that you could get into a 1 inch cube/chunk. I'd stick with lighter meats or substitutes, though seitan would probably rock with this...

Absolutely give this a try if you like fried chicken!

This week I'm giving you a CONDIMENT OF THE WEEK:

Sweeeeeeeeeet Chili Sauce!

 This stuff is basically crack. I use this the same way I use the glory that is Honey Mustard, and I cannot stress enough how amazing this is with chicken nuggets, noodles, rice (oh man is it good on rice) or anything else you think needs a hint of sweet heat! Thankfully, this is available at a lot of regular grocery stores now, and I like the A Taste of Thai brand - it's got a lot of good ready-made meals (their Pad Thai is pretty awesome). This is a versatile, tasty condiment, so I recommend giving it a try.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC