We all make mistakes. In the kitchen, one can make a number of mistakes that can be immediately corrected during the cooking process and end up with the right dish. But sometimes you notice that something went wrong when you are done cooking. Are you going to throw out the dish and try to make something else, or try to make lemonade from the lemon you have at hand?
The first category of mistakes is the most common, and the easiest to fix:if you added too much liquid, if possible, you let the food cook a little bit longer until the excess liquid evaporates. You forget an ingredient, you add it, you skip a step, either you go back or amend the usual procedures to accommodate the wrong turn that you took.
But there are also big mistakes, mistakes that happen at the very end, when you think that the dish is ready, and to your horror, you discover that this was not what you expected or what you were aiming for. Believe me, every cook makes these kinds of mistakes. Don't worry, we'll always find a way to correct them.
CHICKEN TENDERS
Remember the chicken tenders I made for my last tea party? Of course you don't. I did not post the recipe. That was because they didn't come out the way I had hoped they would. You know that one of my basic principles when I am cooking for a crowd that I don't fry, and prefer to cook everything in the oven, especially the meats. But for the first time, I thought of putting aside this principle, because I was aiming for finger foods, and prepare some chicken tenders. My first instinct was to go for my usual recipe of fried chicken, but I wanted to improvise. Big mistake. I decided to cook the chicken tenders in the oven instead of frying them. So I did my homework and looked for recipes of baked chicken cutlets. I found a number of recipes, and they all promised juicy, well done, baked chicken. Not true.
In my mind baking instead of frying means less fat. All the recipes I found used fat in some form to marinate the chicken before cooking it, and then spray some cooking oil or fat on the baking sheet. This gives the impression that you are not actually using fat. But what about the whipping cream or the oil that you used in the marinade? Anyway, as usual, I decided to take the middle ground and eliminate this initial fat and use only the cooking spray, knowing that I used it before with success. Also not very advisable. I marinated the chicken as usual in some onion/garlic mixture, lemon juice, a pinch of oregano and of course salt and pepper. I dipped them in egg, flour and bread crumbs, and as a new thing, added panko (the Japanese crumbs).
I arranged the chicken tenders on a baking sheet spayed with cooking oil and baked them in a 375 degree oven. My husband came in the kitchen at this moment, asked what I was cooking, and made a remark that I should be careful not to serve half baked chicken. Maybe this was the mistake. I left them a bit longer in the oven. Also I think because of the added panko, they did not turn golden brown as expected, so I had to wait longer for that to happen. The end result was not very tender chicken tenders. They tasted good, but very dry.
So, I tried to save the leftovers. It was simple and easy: I made a gravy by cooking a finely chopped clove of garlic in a drop of oil, added some mushrooms from 2 (4 oz) cans, and diluted 2 heaping tbsp of chicken gravy powder in 2 cups of hot water and added them to the pan. I then added the chicken and let them simmer on low until the liquid thickened. The chicken tenders were saved. I served them over pasta with a salad on the side.
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