My mom never enjoyed cooking; she has always done it out of necessity because she married a man who didn’t cook and pretty much expected his wife to cook for him. So she  learned a bunch of basics from her mother-in-law, her sister-in-law, and ran with it. One of the things that was always on rotation growing up was chicken tenders. She used herbed shake’n’bake type bread crumbs, coated flattened chicken pieces in egg, then dipped them in the breadcrumb mixture, and pan-fried them in a little oil. They were always one of my favorite things that she made, and I always looked forward to eating them.

Now that I’m an adult and am experimental with cooking, I made my own version with herbs, garlic powder, homemade panic breadcrumbs, and grated parmigiano reggiano. I baked them and was pretty impressed; they’re like the adult and more sophisticated version of the chicken tenders my mom made. I think she’d be pretty satisfied with these if she were in New York.