Fried Chicken Tenders

A bowl of these golden brown fried mini-fillets will liven up any party, so read on to get the recipe for my Fried Chicken Tenders.

This recipe is based on my earlier Fried Chicken Sandwich video, click her to see it. You'll like the crunchy texture and spicy kick to the coating. This recipe is easy to adjust to your own taste. If I add too much black pepper, then take some out, or if you don't have a Cajun/Creole spice mix then use any you have on hand, or just use regular salt. I try to use ingredients everyone may have.

I found skinless and boneless chicken leg quarters (thigh and leg combined) on sale at my local Latin market, along with the standbys of chicken breast and regular leg quarter whole pieces.

Chicken legs and thighs are the cheapest and it's not too hard to debone. Just cut to reveal the bones and cut around them. You don't have to slice the meat off perfectly, since you will be cutting the meat into bite-sized pieces. Check out my GIF to see how I do it.

And while chicken breast is a little more expensive, it's the easiest to debone. All you do is slice along the breast bone, and the meat almost slides off. Plus white meat has less fat and ligaments to deal with. Just check out my GIFs below, it's really simple to do.

My recipe also calls for buttermilk to soak the chicken in. Well that is often hard to find and expensive. But I Googled a recipe for Homemade Buttermilk, so I have you covered cheaply there.

It takes some oil for deep frying. I always have leftover oil set aside for this. 

And listed below I added a few dipping sauces you can serve. I've got all the bases covered for you to pull together a delicious batch of my crunchy party friendly Fried Chicken Tenders.

Ingredients (about 12 chicken tenders)

• 1 large chicken part - boneless. Thigh and leg, or breast. Slice deboned chicken into bite-sized pieces. Watch my animated GIFs above to see how I debone chicken.
• 3/4 cup flour
• 1/2 cup buttermilk - For homemade buttermilk add a 2 tablespoons of white vinegar or lemon juice, to half cup of milk. Stir and let the mixture sit for a couple of minutes.
• 1 tablespoon seasoned salt - use favorite seasoning like Creole/Cajun or any spicy mix. This seems like a lot but seasonings goes into a lot of flour. Okay to substitute with a tablespoon of regular salt.
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder - or granulated garlic
• 1 teaspoon paprika - optional, okay to substitute with chili powder.
• 1 teaspoon pepper - add more or less to taste.
• Oil for frying chicken - at least half an inch deep in a pan or pot. I used regular cheap vegetable oil.
• *Extra ingredient is a teaspoon of favorite dried herbs like: sage, rosemary, basil or oregano.

Dipping Sauces

• Thai Peanut: 1/2 can of coconut cream or milk, 2 tbsp. peanut butter.
• Garlic Mayo: 1/4 cup mayo, 1 tablespoon garlic powder (or granulated.)
• Honey Mustard: 1/4 cup mustard, 2 tablespoons of honey.
• Tonkatsu Sauce (Japanese): 3 tablespoons of steak sauce (A1, or your favorite,) 3 tablespoons of ketchup, 1 tablespoon soy sauce.

Directions
Remove bone from chicken pieces. Slice chicken fillets into bite-sized pieces. The chicken pieces don't have to be exactly the same size.

I went the easy route and bought skinless and boneless leg quarters on sale. The pieces are quite large, so I sliced it into about 12 bite-sized pieces. White meat is easy to work with, as it slices cleanly from the bone.

Deboning it yourself is the cheapest way.

Thigh and leg meat takes a little more work to debone. Just slice to expose the bone. To remove the meat in one piece, hold the exposed bone and cut around the bone and cartilage ends. It takes a little practice, but one you've done it a few times, it gets easier. Of course, use a sharp knife and be careful with it.

Use a large skillet or pot. Put enough oil to reach 1/2 inch deep. Get the oil hot over a medium heat, to about 300 degrees. I don't use a thermometer, as my gas stove setting is close enough.

Lay out one plate for flour and a wide shallow bowl for buttermilk. (For Homemade Buttermilk mix half cup of milk with 2 tablespoons of vinegar.)

Add all the spices to flour and mix well. My spice amounts are just suggestions, you can adjust any of them to suit your own taste. Too much black pepper? Okay then add half the amount. Want more spice? Then add a sprinkle of cayenne pepper. If you are on a salt restricted diet, then just omit it.

And leave me a comment if you have a great Seasoned Flour Recipe, I'm sure other visitors would be curious, too!

Take some chicken pieces and dip into the buttermilk, moisten all sides. Return buttermilk coated chicken pieces to seasoned flour. Coat the chicken pieces on all sides, pressing the flour into any crevices.

For a less messy method you could put the seasoned flour in a gallon ziploc bag, then add a few of the buttermilk coated chicken and shake the bag to coat chicken.

Now time to fry it up.

When the oil is hot, carefully add coated chicken pieces. Fry each side about 3-5 minutes each, until brown.

Allow chicken to fry a couple of minutes without moving it around. The coated chicken may stick to the pan, but don't move it. It will release itself.

When chicken is done let it drain for a minute on a rack or paper towel - I prefer a metal rack, as paper towels get damp with juices and may make the crust slightly mushy. Although you can blot off excess grease from the fried chicken with a paper towel. (Letting the fried chicken set for a minute allows it to cool down just a little, so you can bite into it without burning yourself.)

If you're not sure the Fried Chicken is cooked all the way through, then make a small slice into the thickest fried chicken nugget to see that the juices run clear, not red or pink - return it for frying if chicken is not cooked through, and give it another minute or so to cook through.

Serve with one of my dipping sauces.

Hindsight
For a lighter crust, leave out the buttermilk wash step - just coat the chicken in flour only.

Remember to let fresh fried chicken cool down for a minute, or you will get burned.

It's can be messy frying chicken. First, flour can get all over your counter and there will be grease splatter. For my video I fried the chicken pieces in a regular frying pan. If you have a deeper pot, then that will keep most of the hot grease splatter off your stove top. You can half-cover the pot when frying - but keep a lookout on the frying chicken to make sure it doesn't burn.

My Fried Chicken Tenders are well seasoned. Once you've done my recipe, fell free to adjust the seasoning amounts - more or less to your taste.

White meat, while more expensive is easier to work with. I prefer dark meat for the flavor, but it does have more fat and some chewy tendons - hey, I like me some chewy bits and extra texture.

Roast Chicken with Peaches & Herbs

Cooking with fruit in season is cheap, just like this Chintzy Chef ! I went to my local Latin market (Superior Grocers) and they had a huge bin of peaches for 69 cents per pound - I left with a bag full.

They had a nice color although the flesh was not ripe. But they are good enough to cook with, after letting them ripen for a couple of days. Normally you want to eat a ripe peach that's soft to the touch, but a firm peach is fine for my  Roast Chicken with Peaches & Herbs.

It's like when you make an apple pie, you want to bake with firm apple slices, so it doesn't turn to complete mush after baking. Of course, you can use a ripe peach for my recipe, I just didn't want to wait a week before digging into this dish.

My latest cheap$kate entree is loaded with taste. From sweet roasted peaches, to tender and moist chicken. I even add extra flavor with a splash of white wine and a sprinkle of herbs. You can use any favorite broth or fruit juice instead of white wine.

 (And this is a versatile recipe, so go ahead and leave out the herbs if you don't have them on hand, or just want to strip my recipe down to basics - it will taste just as good.)

I used 2 whole peaches and 2 chicken leg quarters, that is, 2 chicken thighs and 2 legs. I cut thick slices of peach, so you get meaty bites. And I found a great deal on boneless and skinless chicken, at 88 cents per pound! Well, you know I now have a freezer full of inexpensive poultry.

I like these kind of recipes, because there is so little work or preparation. Just slice a peach and add the chicken and fruit to a baking dish. Finally add a little liquid and seasoning, then start roasting and walk away for about an hour - couldn't be simpler. One pot entrees are the best.

A sweet nectar of white wine, chicken and peach juices are released when roasting that you will want to spoon-over a dry side dish like: rice, pasta, couscous, or quinoa.

My Roast Chicken with Peaches & Herbs is a delicious confluence of flavors and ingredients, mixing and complementing each other. Once you try my fruity entree, you'll definitely make it again....and again.

Roast Chicken with Peaches & Herbs - Video

Play it here, video runs 2 minutes.

My YouTube video link for viewing or embedding, just click here.

Ingredients (2 servings)

• 2 chicken leg quarters - okay to use any chicken pieces you like or find on sale. I used skinless and boneless, that is 2 thighs and 2 legs total.
• 2 peaches - I used firm peaches. Depending how large, it got 6 slice/wedges per peach. I like to keep the slices thick at the wide end. You can use other fruit like sliced apples or whole grapes.
• 1/4 cup of white wine - okay to use a favorite broth, apple or orange juice, or just add water.
• Herbs - about a teaspoon fresh chopped. I have a herb garden, so I used a mix of basil, oregano and parsley. You can also use favorite dried herbs or mix of herbs, like an Italian Mix. For dried herbs use only half of a teaspoon, total. (This recipe tastes good without herbs, too.)
• Salt and pepper to taste.

Directions
Usually I will leave skin on and bone in the chicken pieces for this recipe. You can use skinless and boneless leg quarters or white meat fillets. (Reduce cooking time by 10 minutes or so, as boneless chicken will cook faster.)

Add wine (broth or water) and herbs. A little bit of liquid helps steam the peaches. It will cook away and replaced by chicken juices. If you are cooking breast meat then you may want a 1/2 cup of liquid to help keep the breast from drying out.

Add the chopped or dried herbs. Salt and pepper the chicken.

Wash and slice 2 peaches. I got 6 wedges per peach. I picked a firm peach. It will soften and sweeten when roasted. But ripe peaches will taste fine, they will just be more mushy.

Arrange the peach slices under, on top, and around the chicken pieces. That way you get different textures with the peaches. In the liquid they will be softer and will be flavored with the chicken juices and wine - while on top, they will brown more and stay somewhat firm.

Roast chicken uncovered, until done, about 45 minutes to an hour at 375 degrees. Depending how large the chicken pieces are, especially breast meat, you will want to check for doneness. Just pierce or slice into the thickest part of chicken with a knife. Juices will run clear when cooked through. If you are cooking with boneless chicken then reduce the time by 10 minutes, or so.

I roast the chicken uncovered so the skin gets brown and crackly, and some of the peaches caramelize.

And save some of juice to add to the plate, especially if you have something that sops up the sweet peach/chicken broth.

And for the fun of it here's the soul music couple Peaches & Herb singing "Reunited."

Chicken Cacciatore

Chicken, onions, herbs and red wine - what's not to love about Chicken Cacciatore. This one pot dish couldn't be easier to do, and you can make plenty of it, because it tastes even better the next day!

My recipe below will make 2-3 servings, but it's easy enough to just double the ingredients to feed more. And you can pair this dish with your favorite pasta.

I like to cook with wine, mainly white wine, but for a deeper wine flavor, red is the way to go. With slow simmering, the alcohol cooks away. And red wine goes especially well in a traditional Italian tomato and herb sauce.

I used a small airline bottle of red wine and it's just enough for my recipe. And I bet you know where I get my small bottles of wine....yep, the 99c only Store. Any red wine you can find cheaply will do.

I also get dried herbs there too. But if you have a herb garden then use fresh herbs. You can even use an Italian dried herb mix.

Chicken is cheap and I get mine at bargain basement prices from my local Latin market. Of course, you can use organic chicken if you can afford it.

So check back for more cheap$kate chicken recipes, and get going with this flavorful and easy to make Chicken Cacciatore.

Ingredients (2-3 servings)
1/2 chicken - or equivalent in chicken pieces. I used 2 leg quarters, that is, 2 thighs and 2 legs. You can leave on the bones and skin, or remove. I used boneless and skinless leg quarters on sale.
1 whole onion - medium size white or yellow, chopped.
14.5 ounce can of tomatoes - whole, chopped or crushed. The main thing is to have some tomato pieces in the sauce. You could use tomato sauce, just add a chopped whole tomato for some texture.
3/4 cup of red wine - I used a small airline bottle amount.Any type of red wine will do.
2-4 sage leaves - or 1/4 teaspoon dried
2-4 sprigs of parsley - or 1/4 teaspoon dried.
1 small sprig of rosemary - or 1/4 teaspoon dried.
1 bay leaf - fresh or dried.
1 tablespoon of cooking oil
Salt and pepper to taste
Serve with pasta, rice or any favorite dry starch that can soak up the delicious Cacciatore sauce.
*It's okay to use an Italian dried herb mix instead of fresh herbs or individual jars of dried herbs - use about a teaspoon total.

Directions
Heat oil in a large pan over a medium heat. Add the chicken pieces and cook on the skin side until browned, about 5-10 minutes. Don't move chicken for a few minutes so the pieces brown. Sprinkle on some salt and pepper to taste.

The first few minutes all the liquid will come out, then it evaporates and starts to brown. You don't need to cook the chicken pieces all the way through. You will finish cooking the chicken when you add all the liquid ingredients.

Once one side of the chicken is browned, remove and set aside. It's okay to brown one side, this cuts down on cooking time and you will serve the chicken with the browned side showing anyway.

Add a chopped onion and saute and stir to scrape up the tasty brown bits. Cook onion until it softens, about 5 minutes.

Next pour in the red wine and 1 small can of tomatoes. Stir and break apart the tomatoes if they are whole.

Sprinkle on the herbs. Finally add the chicken pieces. It's okay to use a teaspoon of an Italian dried herb mix instead of fresh herbs or from single jars of dried herbs.

Cook uncovered for about half an hour at a low simmer. The sauce will reduce by half and the chicken should finish cooking all the way through. (Depending on your stove top burner, you can add a quarter cup of water at a time, if the liquid cooks away too fast.)

After the chicken has been cooking for 15 minutes, you can make pasta. Follow the package directions.

The pasta should be ready when the Chicken Cacciatore is ready. Remove the bay leaf. Add pasta to a plate and top with some of the chicken and flavorful tomato sauce. Dig in and enjoy.

(You can break up the chicken pieces when they are done, but it's okay to just serve it up, big pieces and all.)

Halloween - Creepy Cool Meat Videos

Gory Halloween warning! Time to get squeamish with my animated stop-motion videos of raw meat. This Creepy Chef gets ghoulish like a scene from a Stephen King story.  If you're a vegetarian, then stay away! Or peak through hand-covered eyes to read this queasy entry. I'm sure to be on strident vegan Morrissey's (vocalist of the band The Smiths) *hit list after this blog post.

I like my steaks and burgers medium rare. Oozing is fine by me - E. coli be damned!

Raw bloody meat has been depicted in gruesome fine art. Rembrandt van Rijn is primarily known as a Dutch painter of moody portraits during the 17th Century, and I am especially influenced by his "Carcass of Beef" (flayed ox) study - just check out the audacious composition with gory details.

And here's the artist Francis Bacon's 20th Century version, below.

I've been shooting veggies, fruit, and meat against dark backgrounds lately (mainly on a blackened cookie sheet) - usually lit from a single direction, with deep shadows, very much inspired by Rembrandt.

It can get messy cooking with meat. You have to have an iron stomach. Try breaking down a pork shoulder sometimes, like I do below for my Carnitas recipe. It's probably the most artistically nauseating footage I've ever shot - but, boy does it taste so good when all's said and done.



Ground chicken or turkey is mushy and wet, more so than ground beef or pork. But I use it a lot as it's cheaper than beef. Just check out my Patty Melt video to see what I mean -- yuk!



Next to ground chicken, pork is the cheapest. It's delicious for breakfast or added to stir fry like my Green Beans and Ground Pork recipe below. It may sound perverse but it's actually fun to animate with ground meat, it's like playing with Play-Doh, just greasier.

Check out my video below to see the messiness.

Are you still with me? Man, are you hardcore! I'm getting extra creeped out just assembling this blog post.

Sushi is typically made with raw fish. It's so artfully presented that you might miss the gore. Ever gut a fish? Whoa, that is one freaky task! Slice the belly open, yank out the internal organs then chop off the head -- oh, I'm feeling faint just remembering the viscera and the smell - barf!

 However, I like nothing better than cleaned and filleted fish. Well here's one from my Sushi Video Series, the simply shot and presented Tuna Nigiri Sushi.



Well, I'll leave you with the squishy butchering of a couple of chicken pieces. It's the cheapest meat you can get and I have all kinds of recipes that use it. Just type "chicken" in the search window towards the top right side of my food blog to peruse them.

So get out there and have an entertaining Halloween holiday. It's not all blood and guts!

Movies & Jambalaya Animating Weekend

I went to Jerry Beck's October Spooktacular animation festival Saturday afternoon at the Cinefamily theater - great as usual. Mainly, comically scary black and white cartoons from the Silent movie days, through the Technicolor 1950's. Here's the trailer:


SPECTREFEST: Jerry Beck's Animated Spooktacular (trailer) from Cinefamily on Vimeo.

These are cartoons made way before the computer generated style came into favor. Jerry Beck, who put together the show, is the most knowledgeable cartoon scholar around (yeah, imagine that - what a talent, huh?) Here's his website called Cartoon Research, and click here to read a bit about him. He's asked to put together cartoon screenings all the time around LA and I try to see them all.

I worked with animators a lot and have picked up a few tricks, as you can see by my stop motion animated recipe videos. Even some big name film directors have come from animation, like Frank Tashlin, who directed some early Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin films, and Tashlin even mentored Jerry Lewis on how to direct movies during their multi-film collaboration.(Presently, there's Pixar's Brad Bird with Ratatouille and The Incredibles under his belt, who directed Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol.)

As you can see I like the offbeat movie experience. I don't see many new ones, but fortunately Los Angeles has a handful of movie screens that show my type of film. If there is a Film Noir double bill, I'm there. I like a 1920's creepy flick with Lon Chaney, or even the original Wolf Man with Lon Chaney Jr. I could go on and on listing my type of flick - just click on the following theater names to see their film listings: The Bing Theater at LACMA, Billy Wilder Theater at the Hammer Museum, American Cinematheque at the Aero and the Egyptian, and perhaps my favorite and certainly the most eclectically programmed, Cinefamily at the Silent Movie Theater.

On Sunday I started a stop motion version of my Mom's Jambalaya recipe. I got most of it shot and am now making all the video clips for final assembly. You can click here to see the original video that features my Mom. She's turning 80 in a couple of weeks - and she's still cooking!

Right after I finished animating the food, I went to the New Beverly theater (schedule here) in Hollywood. It was taken over a few years ago by always controversial movie Director Quentin Tarantino. The theater runs older films, everything from 1940's Screwball comedies by Preston Sturges to Stanley Kubrick films, and classic French New Wave to Grindhouse exploitation.

While Tarantino ownes the theater, he hasn't programmed the film schedule, until this month. I wanted to see what he would come up with so I've gone a couple of times so far. And I haven't been disappointed.

Quentin is quite the film scholar who's taste runs the gamut. And because he worked in a video rental store, his taste is high to lowbrow, from Kung Fu flicks to old school cowboy Westerns, and to the most obscure Italian crime drama.

I've always enjoyed the New Beverly theater (here is an interesting historical timeline.) But a bit of controversy is surrounding the rechristening of the place since Quentin has taken over the programming. First he got rid of a new digital projector - only film will be show now. And there have been unfortunate personnel changes, read about some of it here.

But it should be an interesting next few months of film programs. Next up for me is the weekly Tuesday night Grindhouse with a Kung Fu double bill featuring a very young Jackie Chan: Snake in Monkey's Shadow and Snake in Eagle's Shadow.

Oh, and Mom's Jambalaya turned out great, and the stop motion animated footage I shot looks delicious.