Old El Paso presents Crispy Chicken

I'm usually pretty wary of spice mixes of various kinds. They're usually full of not-so-good stuff, and often, I just don't like the results.

I've talked about Swedish taco habits before but for a very short recap: Swedes LOVE tacos, which is not just tacos, but a whole plethora of vaguely Mexican food, and we have two major brands on the market: Santa Maria and Old El Paso. (They sound Mexican, but they're very much not so.)

I probably would never have tried this new Crispy Chicken mix if I hadn't gotten a package in the mail. But I'm glad I did! It's a shake-and-bake thing, where you put chicken pieces, a little bit of oil and the spice mix in a bag, shake and bake in the oven. We ate it with tortillas (flour is very dominant here, I've only recently found corn tortillas, and there's no masa harina to make your own. Unless you're me, because I happen to have a huge bag, courtesy of Coco Cooks!) and a spicy avocado salsa which was actually flavored with yet another spice mix, but from Santa Maria this time. Which I would not bother buying, but this was while we were away on vacation, and I didn't have my spice collection - this came in mighty handy.

And the chicken mix? Actually really good. I like it. Two thumbs up! (As long as I don't look too closely at the ingredients list.)

Regarding shake-and-bake by the way. It's not available here, and my only real exposure to it was when I was an exchange student in California. My host sister was slightly obsessed with it - not eating it though, just the concept. I remember her wrapping it up for one of those secret gift exchanges at christmas time...