I had never heard of serving chicken and waffles together until I was in college.  Even then, I thought it was some kind of joke – until I traveled after college and went to a restaurant in Los Angeles that actually specializes in serving them together.  It was so much better than I had anticipated – the chicken wasn’t as overpoweringly savory as I had feared, and the waffles also weren’t ridiculously sweet, so it ended up reminding me of having biscuits, but sweeter.

So tonight, I think I’m going to combine that experience with my fondness of Chinese food.  I don’t know how many times I’ve gotten a scallion pancake with an order of sesame chicken or sweet-and-sour chicken.  Well, waffles use very similar batter to pancakes.  You add brown sugar to the mix when making sesame chicken or sweet-and-sour chicken; why not add maple syrup instead?

Ideally, I’d love to get a genuine Belgian waffle maker; if there’s one thing the Belgians do right, it’s make waffles.  (I’ll leave it to someone from Europe to go into detail about the things Belgians don’t do right… made the mistake once of asking a French person that question, and got an hour-long harangue about Belgians).  That said, I do have a fairly competent waffle iron that at least has deep wells like a proper Belgian waffle maker.  I hope to mix in some scallions, and maybe just a touch of sesame oil, to the waffle batter, and we’ll see how that comes out.

I’ll go with sesame chicken tonight – I think that simply swapping the brown sugar with maple syrup will be an easy substitution that’ll call the original flavors of waffles and syrup to mind while staying true to the flavors of the base dish.  This should be a fast dinner; I have high hopes for it.