One of the best things about eating out is getting ideas to cook things at home. I don’t mean molecular gastronomic creations (I can imagine these may go horribly home at Chez Elliott and I like my eyebrows) but things that are inspirations can still be found at the fanciest restaurants. Case in point, my trip a few months ago to The Royal Mail. They gave us a simple heirloom tomato salad simply dressed with basil and chives. It was easy and it was simple and absolutely possible to recreate at home.

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I have a bit of Southern in me. We’ve never done a family tree and to be honest if someone were to do one, there’d probably be some Russian in there rather than the South of America but my Southern fixation is known amongst my friends and readers. I love deep fried things, red velvet cake, the lilting Southern accent which I do often much to my friend’s delight and my husband’s eye rolling. I even baked Southern pies and cakes for a living so I know how to make a mean Pecan Pie. Bread and Butter Pudding, Pumpkin Pie and Cobbler (although I’m afraid I can’t share those recipes with you as I promised I wouldn’t).

With the New Year came a few new pounds. I can definitely trace the timeline back to SIFF, Austria, Christmas, Valentines Day, New Zealand, Easter and my birthday and now is the time to bade farewell to them as I have no more excuses. This was my little way of easing myself into the whole process. I wasn’t quite yet ready to go cold turkey (mmm cold turkey salad…) and this was my way of calorie and fat saving whilst still pretending that I wasn’t eating raw carrot sticks.

The recipe combines crushed cornflakes with herbs, cheese and a tiny bit of oil to chicken wings or chicken pieces to help give that earth shattering crunch. I love a bit of spice so I added cayenne pepper although if you’re making it for kids and they don’t like spicy food you could omit it. The only shortcoming is that it is better eaten on the day it is made, because there isn’t the oil in it, the next day it doesn’t have that addictive yet embarrassingly good flavour of cold fried chicken. Like pizza and fried chicken, some things are as good eaten the next day.

So tell me Dear Reader, have you ever discovered any surprises in your family tree? Or what would you love to discover in your family tree?

Crunchy Southern “Deep Fried” Chicken

• 1 kg chicken wings or pieces
• 1 cup flour
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 bunch parsley, chopped finely
• 1/4 cup of dry breadcrumbs
• 50grams/1.7 ozs finely grated cheese like reggiano or tasty
• 4 cups cornflakes
• a little oil to drizzle or oil spray

1. Preheat oven to 180C/350F and line 2 baking trays with parchment. Place flour in a shallow plate salt and cayenne pepper. Beat eggs in a wide bowl until well beaten. Place the cornflakes in a ziplock bag and summon up your inner Jerry Springer and bash at the cornflakes with a rolling pin. Mix the cornflakes with the chopped parsley, breadcrumbs and parmesan and place on a large shallow plate.

2. You now have an assembly line where you roll the chicken pieces in the seasoned flour, then roll them in the beaten egg and then the cornflakes. It is less messy if you have two people doing it – one person doing the flour and the egg (make sure to let excess egg drip off) and then another person doing the cornflakes. Otherwise you’ll end up with cornflake covered hands.

3. Place in the oven and bake for 15 minutes. Then take the chicken out of the oven and drizzle a tiny bit of oil (less than a teaspoon per wing really) and then place back in oven and cook for another 20 minutes. Drain on greaseproof paper and serve in a basket, Southern Fried Chicken style!