Chicken and Waffles: Not your mama's dinner

The nutritional anthropologists are saying that Chicken & Waffles can be accredited to the Pennsylvania Dutch. Where it was originally pulled boiled chicken with gravy on top of the waffle.The African American population adopted it and tweaked it a bit, frying the chicken and eating the waffle like you would for breakfast with butter and syrup. Sometimes gravy is used as well. It is considered soul food down south.

Either way you call it or eat it, I have one word.. Mmmmmm... Ok that was a noise. But you get it.

And as my title stated, not your mama's dinner. May be it was your mama's dinner. I'm not sure where you live lol.

All I know is the parts of Maryland I grew up in, and all around the parts of Georgia I lived when I was older. One thing was guaranteed. Chicken & Waffle houses or stands. They dotted the landscape right along side of Mr. Burger King and McDonald's. Some parts of Georgia its easier to find a chicken & waffle house, than a McDonald's.

Since I got married I had many more things to think about than chicken & waffles. But the day struck me a few months ago when I heard the call of the almighty waffle. I was still too busy to heed it. Then yesterday the waffle was like "Now!" and I jumped and said "Why is waffle yelling at me?!?" No.. not really, but you have to admit that would weird a person out if waffles yelled at them.

I got to cooking regardless. Here's what I did...

Non Edibles you will need:

Deep fryer (or pan that can get the job done)
Waffle Maker (Belgian or regular up to you)
Something to keep the waffles warm in
A few plates
whisk
Serving bowls
Tongs
PAM or some sort of cooking spray (I call all of it PAM even if its Crisco lol)
Various spoons for tasting and serving

Ingredients:
4 Large Boneless Chicken breast (or chicken of your choice) room temperature
Bisquick (you can use this to bread the chicken too)
flour (for the gravy)
oil for frying
oil for the waffle recipe
egg
corn (my family takes 3 cans)
milk
Old Bay
Salt & pepper
butter/margarine
1 small can of cream of chicken soup, or that knorr's/swanson stock starter stuff

This serves 4-8 people depending how voracious your people gobble this up. trust me they'll love it!

It doesn't really matter what you make first, but here is some helpful advice.

Chicken cooks the longest out of the 4 items. The waffles are next in line for time, the gravy, then the corn.

First, Heat up your deep fryer if you're using one.

While the fryer is heating up, make your waffle batter. If you're using bisquick the recipe is on the box. Thats the one I used. If you are using straight flour, here's a quick waffle recipe.

• 1¾ cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 Tbsp granulated sugar
• 1 egg
• 1¾ cups milk
• 2 Tbsp vegtable oil
• Tweak this to make as many waffles as you need. It will depend on your waffle maker. If you have a Belgian one like I do, it cuts the number of waffles you can get in half. I find that I do well just making as many as my batter allows. If I need more make more batter. Its less wasteful than making a gajillion waffles.
• Let your waffle batter rest. And heat up your waffle Iron.

I usually set up my flouring "station" as my picture shows. Left to right. Left hand plays with raw chicken, right hand plays with dry ingredients. This way there is less contamination, grodiness of hands etc.

Now, you may need to trim your chicken. Any little bits of white fat you are more than welcome to either cut off or leave.

I start out with a cup of flour and 3 tbsp of old bay in my flour. It sounds like a lot but its not. Stir the flour up until its all blended together.

Holding the chicken in your left hand, salt and pepper the chicken on both sides, then place it in the flour. Use either your right hand or a spoon and put flour on top of the chicken and mush it a little to get the flour to stick. Turn the chicken over and make sure the other side is coated as well. Lightly wiggle the chicken to get any excess flour off of it then put it on the nice new plate to the right of the flour. repeat till all your chicken is done or if you run out of room on the plate. You do not want to stack the chicken on the flour plate. They will take each other's coating off.

Wash your hands exra well when you are done. Raw chicken has some volatile germs.

I find multi tasking to be a thing of mine. I can't just do one thing. While I'm waiting for my chicken (most pieces take up to 10 minutes to fry) I cook waffles in between pieces of chicken. I only suggest multi tasking if you can handle it and employ the use of kitchen timers. Those are handy little buggers.

If your chicken is too large you may have to cut it in half and coat it in the flour that way. if you're using a deep fryer that can accommodate all your chicken that is awesome!

Do not over crowd the chicken, it will not cook even then.

Chicken floats when it is done. If it has been more than 10 minutes, and you're still not floating, I would take it out and let it sit in a casserole dish. Put it in the oven, on as low as it can go, while you fry more chicken. Just to help it along with out it burning being in the fryer for all that time.

What I did was fry a piece (because my fryer was too small to hold more than one piece) when it was sort of floating I put it in the oven on 150 and let it chill out in the oven while I cooked another piece. Adding the new piece in the oven when that one was done etc etc..

After you're done frying all your chicken, and you know they are cooked completely, take them out of the oven if you have them there, and let them rest on your counter or stove top out of the way for at least 10-15 minutes. Just long enough to get everything else done ^_^

What ever type of pan you choose, I would stay away from non stick, unless that's all you have.
You will be doing a lot of whisking and that may damage the non stick surface.

To start:
Get your pan heating up.
You may use bacon drippings or butter. Which ever you have you need a tbsp or two.

Make sure all your ingredients are within arms reach.
Flour
milk
salt & pepper
Chicken stock, or cream of soup opened

After the butter/bacon is melted, add in 1/4 c flour and whisk it till it starts to chunk up into little yellowish crumbles.

Add 1/4 c of milk, whisking it in thoroughly.

Never stop whisking. You may have to change hands.

After it starts looking creamy (You may need to add more milk), add a tbsp of the stock/cream of soup, and whisk it in till dissolved.

Salt and pepper the gravy. After a good seasoning take a spoon and taste the gravy. Add more seasoning if you need it. Too much? Add a little more milk or soup. You can not screw this up.

Its done when you can put the back of your spoon through it and it doesn't run off. (see picture)

Remember it thickens as it cools, so if it looks too thick right now, add a little more milk and it will tighten up at the table. Just remember to taste it though in case you need more seasoning.

You want it to taste a little chicken in the gravy. so. Add more chicken soup/stock to it till it tastes good to you. I usually use a 1/4 of a small can of the chicken soup.

I usually drain the corn. Then use one of the corn cans for water, adding only one can of water, add a lot of butter (corn loves butter and I love buttery corn ^_~) then salt to taste.

Cooking: You can do one of two things.

Stove top

Microwave

Usually my stove top is busy with gravy and everything else, so I microwave the corn for 3-4 minutes on high. Stir it till the butter is gone, then when I'm ready to serve and everyone is getting to the table, throw the corn on for 30 seconds just to spruce it up.

You are more than welcome to just use pancake syrup, instead of gravy. I've had it both ways and it's awesome!

You can also use lactose free milk, which is what I did. And gluten free flour. Wal-Mart also has gluten free Bisquick.

I cut my chicken up, you don't have to.

You can eat the chicken on the side, and dip the waffle in gravy, you may even want to try it all in one bite (I suggest that at least once for full effect).

You can even use the syrup instead of gravy.

I personally like the chicken and gravy both on the waffle. I'll leave that up to you ^_^

Let me know how this turned out for you in the comments below ^_^

Good luck... and go get your cook on! ^_~