Capt'n Crunch Fried Seitan

Capt'n Crunch Fried Seitan. Okay, not gourmet and definitely not healthful. But good. So, apparently there is (or was?) a chain of restaurants called Planet Hollywood that I somehow never noticed the existence of, and this chain was famous for their chicken fingers made with breakfast cereals and a creole mustard sauce.

Capt'n Crunch Fried Seitan with Potato Salad and Coleslaw

I'm not a big fan of chain restaurants; I venture into them extremely rarely, like once a year, and generally only because I'm staying in a hotel located in the middle of Nowhere, New Jersey, whose only nearby restaurant with a bar (very important when visiting family) is T.G.I. Fridays, or because my friends and I have ventured across the state line into the land of box stores (hello, Target!) and are now too tired, overwhelmed by commerce, and starving to make it back home and thus instead must graze at the next-door Chili's.

Anyway, so all that is to say that not only have I never heard of the recipe, I never heard of the restaurant ... except, mentions of this dish keep turning up lately and thus I had to make it, or something like it. Much like the explorations of restaurant-style General Tso's, I came up with a lot of similar recipes. I just couldn't bring myself to buy two kinds of sugary breakfast cereals, since we're more of a English muffin and egg kind of household. (I actually just threw away a giant box of breakfast cereal; we bought it three years ago for my nephews when they came to visit. Apparently two small kids don't need the family size box.) So, I did use the Capt'n Crunch, but substitute panko for cornflakes. And the spices seemed a little dull, too, so those got upped with additions of oregano and paprika.

And the sauce just seemed to complicated ... I mean, who really needs a FIFTEEN ingredient dipping sauce for fried chicken? It's supposed to be a "creole mustard sauce," but while that's as may be, I don't quite know if that's really going to make or break the dish. So we went with honey mustard. All in all, this was pretty damn tasty, if a little sweet - probably a honey mustard/dijon blend would have been better, but I was out of dijon.

I'm catering a luncheon for mostly kids this week (an end of school celebration), and I've been wondering what to make for the veggie adults coming - and this is it.