Comfort by Chicken

I've noticed something interesting while eating in restaurants amid recent laziness. It isn't necessarily hard to avoid more obvious forms of wheat/gluten like pasta or bread.  Where things get tricky lie with breadcrumbs, thickened sauces and the like, which affect a celiac's ability to eat quite a bit of restaurant foods. I missed chicken cutlets the most of all out of the breaded foods, so when I finally found some amazing gluten free breadcrumbs and had to come up with a good test I very quickly decided on fried chicken, or in this case, oven fried chicken. Yummmmm.

Oven Fried Puerto Rican Chicken

 (This picture sucks. I need a new camera.)

6 chicken tenders, pounded to 1/3 - 1/4 inch evenly
1 eggs, beaten
3 tablespoons dried goya adobo seasoning, divided into 2 and 1 tablespoon
1 tablespoon oregano
2 tablespoons paprika
1 1/4 cups GF bread crumbs
2 tablespoons EVOO

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Lay room temperature chicken tenders between two sheets saran wrap on a cooking board and pound out the day's stress.  Set aside.

Beat an egg with 1 tbsp adobo and pour into a dish.

Mix bread crumbs with remaining adobo, oregano and paprika and pour into a separate dish.  Set the dishes next to eachother.

Dip the chicken in egg mixture, rolling it around in the mixture several times.  Then pat the chicken into breadcrumb mixture, spooning mixture over chicken, turning over and repeating to ensure equal, substantial breading all around.

Liberally rush EVOO with a pastry brush on the bottom of a baking sheet with a lip. Put chicken on the baking sheet. Sprinkle with oil by covering most of the EVOO bottle's spout with your finger so that the oil forms a few thin ribbons of oil on each chicken piece.

Bake for 10 - 12 minutes.

While chicken bakes, you can make this gluten free honey mustard recipe.




Gluten Free Honey Mustard

1/3 cup gluten free mayonnaise
2 tablespoons dijon mustard (gotta go grey poupon) or 1 tablespoon dijon and 1 tablespoon whole grain mustard, for texture
2 tablespoons honey
optional: 1 tsp lemon juice

Mix it all together. Here comes the hard part: try not to eat it all with your fingers before you get it on the table.

This all combines well with a heaping side of creamy spinach. And/Or Gluten Free Girl's Classic Mac and Cheese.  If you have leftover breadcrumbs, use them to top of the mac and cheese or add some crunch to the below spinach recipe. 



Creamy Spinach

2 tablespoons light cream cheese (neufetchel or block)
16 oz frozen spinach, at least partially thawed
1 tbsp EVOO
nutmeg
cracked black pepper

Heat a small saucepan over medium high heat.  When pot is hot, add 1/2 of the EVOO.  Add spinach and stir,  breaking up clumps.  After about two minutes, add the rest of the EVOO and a large pinch of nutmeg.  Roughly ground some pepper. Once spinach is cooked and warmed through, add cream cheese and stir to integrate, removing from heat once all the chunks of cream cheese have cooked down.