Some real cooking, finally!

Yesterday I decided that I really had to cook some Real Food (TM) for my poor husband who has been living off falafel from the Middle Eastern joint two blocks away. I asked him what would he want, and his response was "We don't have much of ingredients, so just make some chicken with whatever we have".

I went to the kitchen and the first thing that my eye fell on was the box of fat free saltine crackers on the counter. And the saltine crusted oven fried chicken was born.

4 chicken pieces (we prefer boneless skinless breast)
2 Tsp grapeseed oil
Granulated onion
Granulated garlic
Salt,
Pepper
15-20 fat free saltine crackers
Italian herb mix seasoning, or the following dried: rosemary, thyme, oreganon, basil
1/4 cup flour
1 beaten egg
baking spray

Thaw the chicken if using frozen (which is what I do), then toss it in a ziplock bag with the grapeseed oil and a generous dash of onion and garlic powder, plus salt and pepper to taste. Shift everything in the bag so that the marinade goes everywhere, then put it in the fridge for at least 1 hour.

When you take it out, preheat the oven at 350oF. Pulverize the crackers in a blender, or with your bare hands if you don't have one. Make a drenching line with three bowls: One with the flour seasoned with salt and pepper, one with egg, and one with the saltine crackers and the italian herb mix. You can eyeball the seasoning quanitities or adapt them to taste.

Grease a 13x9 pan with the backing spray (i use olive oil flavor which is better for cooking), then drench each chicken piece in the seasoned flour, then the egg, then the seasoned cracker crumbs, then put them on the pan. Bake for 15 mins, turn them, bake 10 more minutes.

I was afraid that the crust would be too hard since the crackers don't have any moist or fat in them, like regular bread crumbs would have. It definitely had a crunch, which was actually quite pleasant. The flour and egg totally helped the crust stay on and not disintegrate or peel off, which is also a win.

I'll definitely do this dish again, with different seasonings.