Dinner Delight

So dinner on Wednesday was spectacularly good. I made fried chicken salad with honey mustard dressing. Nothing like some fried chicken to make life complete. This dish was actually a lot easier than I expected it to be. So, first I got all my ingredients together.
For the salad, I used lettuce, tomatoes and some cheese. The honey mustard dressing uses honey, rice wine vinegar and mustard. For the fried chicken, I used panko, which is like the Japanese version of bread crumbs, paprika, salt, 2 eggs, and of course, chicken.
So I quickly threw the salad together. Chop the lettuce, cut the mini tomatoes in half, toss in a handful of cheese. Then I set it aside to make the honey mustard dressing, which I got from Alton Brown off the Food Network. Actually the only thing I took away from that recipe was the ingredients: mustard, honey and rice wine vinegar. Japan has yet to discover yellow smooth mustard, so I used dijon mustard. I also didn't follow the measurements. I used two spoons of mustard, two spoons of rice wine vinegar, and about 3 spoons of honey. And then I mixed it and that was that. So, I set that aside to start the chicken. So, I cubed my chicken, and then cracked two eggs into a bowl. I used two eggs and I had a lot left over, so maybe one would be good enough. In another shallow bowl, I combined the panko, paprika, and a little salt.

The easiest way to bread something, for me, is to use one hand for the eggs, and one hand for the bread crumbs. I tossed some chicken into the egg mix, and shook off any extra egg. If you have too much egg on the chicken, it will just make the breading mix clumpy.

After shaking off any extra egg, I dropped the chicken in the breading mix and rolled it around a bit. I don't think there is a need to pack it on. I think if you add too much breading, it doesn't get crispy when you fry it, just kind of soggy and mediocre. Since it's so hard to get rid of oil here, I don't deep fry anything. I just added a little more oil than I usually use. And since I'm also really lazy, I packed all the chicken into the pan at once. I recommend putting the chicken when it starts to get hot so you don't burn yourself on accident when the oil is really hot. When the chicken started turning white on the sides, and the bottom turned a crispy golden color, I turned them over to cook for another minute or two. After it was finished, I got a plate and put two paper towels on it and put the chicken on it to get rid of any extra oil sticking to the chicken. I also used another paper towel to pat the tops too. So once the chicken was finished, I grabbed my salad and the honey mustard dressing. I put the dressing on the salad before I added the chicken, because I didn't want the dressing to over power the crispiness of the chicken. After that, I just added the chicken and I was done. This was the first time I had made this and it only took me 30 minutes, which was great, because that means the next time I make it, it will take even less time. And it was DELICIOUS. Hmm,after posting this, I just want to make it again tonight! Well, I'm off to the store to find some food. If you have any good recipes or suggestions let me know and I'll try to make it!