As you can probably guess, January ‘new year, new me’ isn’t happening. I’m already awesome, I only plan to get awesome-er. Definitely a word. The best way for me to do this is by continuing to make absolutely-not-healthy-at-all food like this affectionately named American concoction, Crack Chicken. Crack chicken seems to take many forms, some people cook it in a slow cooker with ranch dressing and bacon, some people bake it whole smothered in barbecue sauce, but this is my version, deep-fried in breadcrumbs, smothered in sauce and baked in the oven until sticky, juicy and a bit crispy. If, like me, you’re 110% over January, I’d suggest you join me in making this for your tea tonight.

Ingredients

• About 4-6 chicken breasts(depending on how hungry you are/how many people you want to not share this with) cut into thin strips
• Roughly 200g plain flour, just enough to coat the strips
• 3 eggs
• 50ml milk
• 250g breadcrumbs, any is fine, panko is preferred

For the sauce

• 300ml Barbecue sauce (you favourite, or mine)
• 100g muscavado sugar
• juice of 3 limes
• lots of cracked black pepper
• teaspoon of smoked chopped garlic (this is the best, but you can go with unsmoked)
• a few drops of Tabasco (if you’re feeling daring)
• finely chopped parsley
• 25ml vinegar

Also be sure to have a pan of vegetable oil ready for your frying, heat about 1 litre of oil on a medium/high heat until you can fry a cube of bread golden in about 30 seconds. This should take about 10 minutes

Let’s get cracking! First of all, preheat your oven to 180C. Get all of your sauce ingredients into a saucepan and let them simmer together on a low heat until the sugar has dissolved. In 3 separate bowls, have your flour, milks and eggs and breadcrumbs(known to us chefs as a pané mix) and coat you chicken in each in that order until they’re fully crumbed. Next, place your chicken pieces carefully into your hot oil and fry until golden. Take your sauce off the heat and once the chicken is ready, stick it all in the saucepan. Give it all a mix around so the chicken is fully covered and transfer the whole lot onto a baking tray with greaseproof paper, spacing them out a bit so they don’t stick together. Bake for about 15 mins, remove from the oven, check they’re cooked and then bung them all in your mouth!

Easy!