Falafel Chicken

Michael Ruhlman’s brilliant pan-fried chicken recipe has single-handedly helped reincorporate protein into the diets of at least one carb-fascinated kiddo; for that I am eternally grateful.

The recipe uses a buttermilk-like glop to soak the chicken in which isn’t buttermilk but rather milk and yogurt; obviously useful because those two ingredients are usually on hand. But actually we don’t usually have yogurt on hand. What seems always to be around is hummus.

I can’t get into a thing right now about how people want to believe they eat more hummus than they actually do, but suffice it to say I think people entertaining people assume people eat a lot more hummus than they actually do. Which is how we ended up with a shit-ton of hummus. And when I learned that you can freeze hummus without it harming anything, I learned to accept all the hummus which we were in custody of.

Which is to say, I took out a single serving of hummus, the kind you get in bulk at Costco, let it come to room temperature and then mixed it into a bowl with milk — thus your fried chicken wash.

Alright, so then, instead of just white flour, mix a little chickpea flour (or garbanzo bean flour). The thing, honest-to-god has this great falafel flavor in there.