I will be forever grateful to Tiffany over at Creme de la Crumb for posting this amazingly delicious chicken recipe. Sorry my picture is a little blurry above, but I had already tasted one and was so keen to get on and eat more that I didn’t want to waste time trying to get the perfect picture. Tiffany created this recipe in an attempt to replicate the Sticky Fingers served at Wingers restaurants. I’ve never been to a Wingers, we don’t have them in the UK, so I can’t say whether these are like those but what I can say is that if I was served these in a restaurant I would be a very happy girl. They are crispy (and stay crispy even when coated in the sauce), and sticky, and hot from the chilli sauce, and I shall definitely be making them again (I hope I’m not over-selling them here).

Aside from doubling the quantity from Tiffany’s original recipe, I also changed a couple of other things, for reasons I will explain…

WHAT YOU NEED

For the chicken:

• 6-8 chicken breasts, pounded to ½ inch thickness
• 1 cup flour
• 3 eggs, beaten with 2 tablespoons water (this is the same quantity that Tiffany had for half the amount of chicken, but really 3 eggs is plenty for this double chicken quantity)
• 2 cups panko bread crumbs (trust me here, stick with the panko crumbs, they really make it)

For the sauce:

• 3 cups brown sugar
• ⅔ (two-thirds) cup Cholula chipotle hot sauce (the original recipe called for Frank’s hot sauce, and while you can get that in the UK, they didn’t have it in the supermarket I went into, so I chose this instead and it was very yum, so this is my recommended sauce)

• 4 tablespoons water

The original recipe also called for some garlic powder, but I didn’t add that; partly because I didn’t have any, and partly because I felt this hot sauce was flavorsome enough.

And you also need:

• Some spray cooking oil (if you don’t like the chemically type ones, just buy a pump spray and put oil of your choice in there)
• A dressing or sauce to dip them in. I meant to buy ranch dressing, but I accidentally bought caesar dressing instead, but hey, that worked too! Or blue cheese dressing would be good too. Something that has a little bit of tang to it to contrast with the hot and sweet of the chicken.

WHAT YOU DO

1. Preheat oven to 220C/425F and grease a baking sheet with spray cooking oil.

2. Slice chicken breasts into strips (about 3 – 4 strips per breast depending on size). Add chicken strips and flour to a large ziplock bag. Seal and toss around until chicken is well coated in flour.

3. Tip panko crumbs in a bowl. Dip flour-coated chicken strips first into the beaten egg and water mixture, and then into the panko crumbs to coat on all sides.

4. Place the chicken pieces on to the baking sheet.

See how much nicer they look already with the panko crumbs, vs regular breadcrumbs

5. Spray well with more cooking oil. Bake 15-20 minutes until chicken is browned and cooked through.

6. Make the sauce while chicken is cooking. Add the brown sugar and hot sauce to a pan and stir over medium-high heat until melted, bring gently to the boil then stir in the water. The sauce needs to be hot to serve, so if you’ve completed this before the chicken is ready, just rewarm it gently.

7.  When chicken strips are done cooking, toss them in sauce till covered all over and serve immediately with your dipping sauce/dressing of choice.

I would probably usually serve these with a lovely mixed salad, but quite honestly I couldn’t be bothered to prepare one, so I just steamed some broccoli. Let’s look at my blurry picture one more time…