Peanut Butter Cereal Fried Chicken: A lesson in humilty

Last night I decided to try my hand at what I thought would be a simple fried chicken recipe that I had conjured up. I had read in one my many food blogs I follow a version that used honey bunches of oat and I was immediately intrigued. My mind immediately thought of the peanut butter cereal that sat on my counter and wondered if I could somehow make my own version using it. I envisioned a thai style chicken where it is not unsual to use peanut sauces. Onward I went and bought some chicken breasts and cilantro that I would add to my cereal mixture. (I also added chili powder, red pepper flakes, and salt to give it some heat and depth)

On my counter I mounted a Ford-style assembly line with flour, eggs, and the crushed cereal mixture and proceeded to heat some vegetable oil to do a lil' frying. This is where things started going down hill. You see I've never fried anything in my life. I actually tend to avoid fried food and massive amounts of oil as I am a proud WW member and these are things that just start dwindling my points allowance at a rapid pace. But hell! It was Sunday and I was going to try my hand at it.

I dunked my chicken in some flour, removed excess, then dunked it in the egg, removed excess, and then into the cereal mixture it went. Oh my gosh, I thought, this is not too bad! HAHAHA, the little devil on my shoulder was thinking, as he waited in anticipation to see my downfall. Into the oil we go. I flipped and what I saw was a blackened mess. Yikes! Crap! What?! Awww...sh**! I let it cook on the other side and took it out. What I stared at was a blackened, crispy something that even myself who is a carbon fan would not enjoy. And to make matters worse it was completely raw inside.

The tears began. (I am brought easily to tears when trying to cook.) And the frustration and anger began to mount to "get out of the way she is about to blow" on the temper meter. The BF said I should cut the pieces thinner since it may just be too thick. This in fact was a correct assumption, but at that moment his advice was just adding some kindling to the flame. Mr. Hyde may have made an appearance, but I'm not really sure as I completely blacked out and came to a few minutes later. After my griping of not knowing how to properly cut said chicken I proceeded to do a paltry, though effective job of it. I was thinking I should just bake this chicken so that it would cook through and not burn to an utter crisp, but the BF wanted me to try again. Him being the absolute darling that he is cleaned my dishes and cleaned the pan of the dirty vegetable oil so we could start again.

I wish I could say it got better from there. But by this point I was a complete maniac and was just making things more dramatic then they needed to be. We fried up half of the chicken, smoked up my lil studio, still had some pieces burnt beyond recognition, and I was left feeling emmasculated and wondering why I was so inept.

Yet, in that mess there were some specimens that came off browned and juicy, with a great crust that was peanut buttery delicious. It took me some time to recognize a small success in that fact but all I could do was dissect what went wrong and what I could do to fix it. There was no satisfaction because of my less than stellar behavior and I completely own up to that.

I realize I am still learning and have a long way to go. That to learn we must make mistakes and be willing to make an utter catastrophe so we can figure out how to make something delicious. And that when you are cooking with fire the fiery temper needs to be left outside. BLAH BLAH BLAH... I know! Trust me, I am working on it and recognize that I have one of the most patient men in my life to put up with my ridiculousness and come out of it unphased.

So in an effort to learn from my mistakes I am trying to do this recipe again tonight. There will indeed be baking instead of frying, which I think will benefit the flavors and texture that I am trying to achieve; but I am going to make this idea of mine work. I will put up some pics of the final product and will update everyone on how it turned out. Until then, happy eating friends.