Cracker cornmeal chicken fingers

Chicken second courses

I come from a family who loves fried chicken. I remember my Mother standing over her stove frying it in hot oil. When not eating it at home, we loved to go out to small inns or taverns where the speciality of the house was "Chicken in a Basket". The red plastic baskets were lined with red and white checked waxed paper and filled to the brim with crispy chicken pieces and hand-cut french fries. Over the years, my Mother decided that all of that fat and breading was not good for us and she started baking chicken strips in the oven with a coating of breadcrumbs and flour. It was still delicious but I missed that deep fried goodness. On a recent G. Garvin show on the Cooking Channel, he visited a restaurant who's specialty was deep fried pork strips with a coating of crushed cracker crumbs, cornmeal and flour. A light bulb moment . . . . I could do that with chicken and fry it in a frying pan with a moderate amount of oil. The results were reminiscent of the fried chicken that I remembered as a child. My Mother would have loved this recipe.