Yum. This was a delicious meal, and I can definitively say that this recipe is extremely flexible. Because for a wide variety of reasons, I basically didn't follow the recipe at all. Oops. Oh well. It was still delicious. Yum.
First step is to make the dressing. The original recipe called for blue cheese and lemon juice in the dressing, but that was obviously not going to happen. Blue cheese? Gross. So what did I substitute? Goat cheese, obviously. What else would I do? And I had every intention of using lemon juice. I really did. Except I didn't check the fridge before I went to the store. We only had like a tablespoon of lemon juice left in the bottle. And the only lemons in the fridge were growing some kind of funky fuzzy stuff. Ew. So instead, I used oranges. Totally the same thing, right? Oh, and last change to the dressing? I opted out of the chopped celery and threw in some dried cilantro.
So to recap the ingredients: sour cream + goat cheese + hot sauce + freshly squeezed orange juice + orange zest + cilantro + salt and pepper. Whisk them all together, and you've got some fairly serious magic.
Toss about half of the dressing together with some spinach, finely chopped red onion, and mushrooms (optional). Set aside the rest of the dressing to be used as dip for the chicken fingers.
Meanwhile, heat up some oil in a deep pot and get your flour and buttermilk ready. Coat the chicken fillets once in flour and buttermilk, then twice, and then one last time in the flour before firing them into the oil.
Cook to your preferred level of crispiness, remembering to turn them over about halfway through.
Once they're all crisped up, put them a plate lined with paper towel and sprinkle with salt. Throw the next batch in the oil, and keep going until they're all cooked.
Serve them beside the spinach salad with extra dressing for dipping sauce, or chop them up and sprinkle on top of the salad. Your choice. I added chopped peaches to my salad for garnish and a bit of a flavour pop (berries would work nice too -- blueberries in particular, I think) as well.
Enjoy :)
The original recipe comes from Rachel Ray's Express Lane Meals.
Double-Dipped Buttermilk Chicken Fingers on Spinach Salad with Blue Cheese Dressing
(aka possibly the longest recipe name of all time)
Ingredients:
Zest and juice of 2 lemons
A few dashes of hot sauce
1 cup blue cheese crumbles
1/2 cup sour scream
1 celery rib, finely chopped
Salt and black pepper
Vegetable oil, for frying
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups buttermilk
1 teaspoon paprika, 1/3 palmful
1 1/2 to 2 pounds chicken tenders
1 pound spinach
1/2 small red onion, thinly sliced
10 button mushrooms, stemmed and thinly sliced
Directions:
1. In a small mixing bowl, combine the lemon juice, hot sauce, crumbled blue cheese, sour cream, celery, salt and pepper. Mix the dressing well and reserve.
2. Preheat 1 1/2 inches of vegetable oil in a large deep skillet. While the oil is heating, set up a breading assembly line near the stove. Put the flour in a large, wide bowl; pour the buttermilk into a second large, wide bowl; then stir in the lemon zest and paprika. Season the chicken tenders with salt and pepper. Working in 2 or 3 batches, dust the chicken tenders in the flour, shake off the excess, then coat in the buttermilk. Transfer them back to the flour and coat them thoroughly, then back to the buttermilk, and then back into the flour for one last coating.
3. To test the oil temperature, add a 1-inch cube of bread to the hot oil. If it turns deep golden brown by a count of 40, the oil is ready. If the bread cube browns too quickly, turn down the heat and wait a few minutes for it to cool down. Carefully place the first batch of coated tenders in the hot oil. Fry the tenders in small batches for 6 to 7 minutes, turning when the first side has become golden brown. Once cooked, remove from the oil to a paper-towel-lined plate and immediately sprinkle them with a little salt. Repeat until all the tenders are fried.
4. After the last batch of tenders goes into the oil, combine the spinach, red onion, and sliced mushrooms in a large salad bowl. Pour half of the dressing over the salad and toss it to coat. Top the salad with the fried chicken tenders, whole or chopped, your choice, and serve the remaining dressing on the side for dipping.
No comments:
Post a Comment