Baked Buffalo Chicken bites – that’s right, baked!

Don’t we all love it when yummy fried foods can also be baked with no oil????
I’ve been wanting to try out this baked version of the buffalo chicken bites, and finally I did. I’m going to be honest, it was good, really good, but not as good as the fried version. But I’d rather make the compromise a million times over, than give up fried food.

Really easy, really quick. It was done in no time. And absolutely no oil!

This recipe has been adapted from A Genius Blog

Baked Buffalo Chicken bites   Makes about 20 bites

You will be needing

-200gms chicken breasts, cleaned, and cut into bite-sized pieces
– 2tsp hot sauce (any spicy sauce will do. I used Sambal Olek. Or make do with ketchup spiced with red chilli powder)
– 1tsp cream cheese or you can also substitute with curd
For the stock
– 1/2 medium onion, chopped roughly
– 1 cm ginger
– 2-3 cloves of garlic, peeled and slit
– 4-5 sprigs of fresh coriander (stem and all)
– Salt to taste
– a generous pinch of red chilli powder
– 1/4tsp pepper
– 1 cup water
For the coating
– 1 egg, beaten with a pinch each of salt, turmeric and pepper 
– 2-3 tbsp all purpose flour
– 1/2 corn flakes, crushed coarsely (the cereal kind works better, but I just had raw corn flakes, and it worked too)
– About 1/4tspred chilli powder or pepper to spice the all purpose flour.
– Salt to taste (to be added with the flour)

Method

– In a pan, add all the ingredients for the stock along with the chicken and cook covered over a low heat till the chicken is well done. You can also use existing chicken stock or chicken stock cubes to cook the chicken in. The idea is to make sure that the chicken doesn’t taste bland, and has some kind of a flavour to it.
– Drain the cooked chicken pieces and set aside.
– Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line a baking tray with tin foil or butter paper.
– In a small bowl, keep the beaten egg ready for dipping.
– In a plate, mix the all purpose flour with the seasoning (chilli powder or pepper along with a little salt). Set aside.
– In another plate, keep the crushed corn flakes.
– All that’s left to do is assemble! Dip the chicken in the flour mix, then into the egg, and roll in the corn flakes till no part of the chicken is visible.

– Place the chicken on the prepared tray.
– Bake at 180°C for 20-25 minutes.
– Serve hot!