Southern Comfort with an Asian Twist

Not your typical fried chicken and mashed potatoes!

I was in the mood for some fried chicken but this time....it wasn't Southern style...it was Asian flavors that inspired my meal! I'm gonna show you how I made some real good comfort food into a modern meal by adding Asian flavors. This is such a great way to switch things up a bit when you're tired of the same old fried chicken and mashed potatoes!

For the flour mixture, combine 1 teaspoon black pepper with 1 teaspoon garlic powder 1-2 tablespoons seasoned salt with 2 cups flour.
Panko crumbs are a light, buttery bread crumb mixture used in many Asian recipes! If you haven't cooked with these before, you must try them! Season the Panko crumbs (about 2 cups) with 1 tablespoon Chinese five spice. If you don't have Chinese five spice you can add 1 teaspoon garlic powder, 1 teaspoon ground ginger, 1 teaspoon cinnamon and 1 teaspoon ground cloves and 1 teaspoon salt.
Perfectly seasoned flour and Panko crumbs will make your chicken flavorful and delicious!

Have your flour mixture followed by your egg wash then finally your Panko crumbs all in a row for your fried chicken assembly line.

1st dredge chicken in flour mixture.
Then dip in egg wash. Egg wash is 2 eggs whisked with a couple tablespoons of water.
And finally coat in Panko crumbs.
Make sure to press Panko crumbs down to stick to chicken.
Then shake off any excess crumbs.

Place chicken in a oil sprayed pan and top each piece of chicken with a small pat of butter.

Here's your Asian Baked Fried Chicken! Nice, golden skin and crunchy Panko crumbs. It takes about 45-55 minutes at 375 degrees in the oven to get this chicken to perfection.
Don't serve this Asian inspired fried chicken with just plain old mashed potatoes...make some wasabi mash potatoes! These are so good with this chicken! You can buy wasabi powder in almost any grocery store these days.

Mix a little of the wasabi powder (about 1 tablespoon) with 3-4 tablespoons water...making a paste. Mix well and let it sit for a few minutes to absorb and as the mixture sits, it will get stronger.

Mix the wasabi paste into your favorite garlic mash potato recipe. Your potatoes will have a slight green tint to them and just a slight wasabi bite. Honestly....so freakin' good!

I also added some Asian flavors to the broccolini I served with my potatoes and chicken.

I grilled the broccolini on my grill pan drizzled with a little olive oil then added a couple tablespoons of my sweet and spicy Asian sauce to them right before they were done grilling.

For my sweet n spicy Asian sauce recipe go to:
http://checkitoutavesta.blogspot.com/2008/10/sweet-n-spicy-asian-style-meatballs.html


The final product is some good old comfort food with a little kick! Talk about good stuff!