Sriracha Chicken Wraps

There's a new show on the Food Network called Bitchin' Kitchen. The host of the show is an Italian girl named Nadia G.

There are a few things I love about this show. I love the vintage style clothing she wears sometimes, and I love love love the set. I can't find a picture of it, but imagine a lot of pink, black, red, and chaos. The thing I hate most about this show, is how much Nadia G is trying so hard to come across as a hardcore Italian chick. I have no problem with Italians, frankly, I would love to have an Italian mother in law one day who will feed me all the time. Just something about Nadia G irks me. This doesn't stop me from watching though, once the show is on I can't stop. She makes delicious looking food, and throws in helpful information about ingredients all the time. I just get the impression she is trying to hard. I mean, you don't see THIS GUY

trying too hard to prove his Italian heritage. (Why yes, that is "The Situation". Jersey Shore FTW)

Last night I made Sriracha Chicken Wraps, not Italian by any means, the intro had nothing to do with the featured meal. Sriracha is a Thai hot sauce made from chilies and garlic. Those of you who do not recognize the name, you may recognize the bottle:

The greatest thing about Sriracha is it packs a lot of heat in a small amount of sauce. I prefer it to some other hot sauces that add a tangy and distinctive flavor, because Sriracha just adds heat without warping the taste of your dish. Also a pretty large bottle of it costs about $2.99. Ridiculously cheap.

The recipe for the chicken wraps can be found here, but I will give you a basic rundown of how they are made.

To make the strips, pieces of chicken are marinated in a mix of Sriracha, soy sauce, green onion, sugar, ginger and garlic. After four hours they are removed from the marinade and coated in a mix of panko bread crumbs and toasted sesame seeds. The best way to coat anything is to use one hand to carry the "wet" item and place it in the dry coating, and the other hand to scoop the dry coating on top of the item and removing it from the coating. If you place your wet hand in the dry coating you will end up with a clumpy mess on your fingers. Gross.

The coated chicken pieces are placed in a hot oven to BAKE, not FRY!

The chicken pieces themselves were so tasty, and due to time constrictions, mine had only marinated for two hours, I can't imagine how great they would be after four or more hours. They had a great spicy kick to them, and I love panko as a crisp coating for chicken.

To make the wraps, assemble a variety of vegetables and lettuce. I wanted to use butter lettuce, but my grocery store was out. I used a plain green leaf lettuce instead (though I would use iceberg over green leaf the next time). The veggies I used were thinly sliced radishes, cucumbers, red bell pepper, and matchstick carrots. I would have also liked to have some thinly sliced green onions, but I didn't have any that didn't go into the marinade.

Think of the chicken wrap like a taco. Use the lettuce for the "tortilla", the chicken as the meat and the sliced veggies for the...well, sliced veggies. And as no taco would be complete without some sauce, the wraps should have some too.

The sauce for the wraps is made from soy sauce, Sriracha sauce, olive oil, sugar, lime juice, sesame oil and dry ginger. Pretty simple, and pretty spicy.

I loved these wraps. I will be making them time and time again. The marinade is quick to throw together, as is the sauce. The veggies didn't take a long time at all to prepare, and nowadays it's pretty easy to cheat and buy pre-cut veggies.

The best part is that these are very healthy (at least by my standards), and taste pretty awesome. Even though the wraps could be deconstructed into a chicken salad, they didn't feel like I was eating a salad for supper. The chicken was very crisp, without having been fried. Delicious. I loved these.