When I was in fourth grade, I loved two things: sports and chicken fingers.

When I was about 8, I went on a 4-5 day trip to Gettysburg with my grandparents, and to this day, my grandmother jokes about how I ordered chicken fingers for every single lunch and dinner for the entire trip.  Likewise, Tuesdays at the Sea Road School cafeteria was affectionately known as “nug-nug” days for the chicken nuggets my friends and I couldn’t wait to dominate each week.

Little did we know (at the time, at least) that we were really just eating a load of “mechanically separated chicken parts,” sugar, bread crumbs, corn starch, vegetable oil, and “leavening” and “anti-foaming” additives.  In spite of my crazy activity level, it’s these stellar ingredients (and surely some of the other garbage I was eating) that were responsible for my remarkable transformation between my third and fourth grade school pictures.

Whoever said that you can’t gain “baby fat” in 4th grade never watched me crush nug-nugs.

Kidding aside (kind of), it should come as no surprise that I love to eat; at heart, I’m still a chubby kid who wants his chicken fingers.  However, I fight my inner demons and stick to the healthy stuff.  I’m proud to say that I was “chicken finger sober” for 16 years, but that streak ended on Monday night.  Fortunately, I was working off a great recipe I picked up from Dave Ruel’s Metabolic Cooking e-book, one of my favorite resources of all time.

These fingers were “to die for,” so I thought I’d reach out to Dave to see if he’d be okay with me reprinting his Metabolic “Fried” Chicken Fingers recipe for my loyal readers.  Knowing the joy that chicken fingers has brought to mankind for centuries, he kindly obliged – and here it is:

“INGREDIENTS (RECIPE MAKES 4 SERVINGS/16 FINGERS)

• 4 cooked chicken breasts (4oz each)
• 2 egg whites
• 1 teaspoon coconut oil
• ½ cup bran buds
• ½ cup oatmeal
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• Salt and pepper

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 375°F. Prepare baking sheet by coating the coconut oil. Cut chicken breasts into four equal strips (you should have 16 strips total). Set aside. Grind oatmeal and bran buds in a food processor (or blender). Next, combine all dry ingredients in a large container with a tightly fitting lid. Shake well. This is your coating mixture.

2. Add egg whites in a medium bowl. Dip each strip in the egg whites. Then dip each strip (finger) in the coating mixture. Make sure each piece is well coated.

3. Place on the baking sheet. When all of your chicken has been coated and your baking sheet is full, place in the oven and bake for 10 mins or until golden. Then turn the fingers and bake for an additional 5-6 minutes.”

Here’s how ours turned out (and I can assure you that they tasted even better than they looked; I was more concerned with wolfing them down than I was with tastefully presenting them for the camera):

For more awesome recipes like this, be sure to check out Metabolic Cooking, a great resource to which you’ll be referring for years to come. It (as well as its sister resource, Anabolic Cooking) is on sale for just $10 through the end of the day today

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