Picture this. Your kids are hounding for chicken nuggets. They want chicken nuggets and they want them naaaaaaaaow. And you, being the concerned, health-conscious parent don't want the little darlings to eat the deep fried crap, but crumbing things is like a whole other language and it never stays on the meat you want it to stay on. Oh god. Well! Never fear! Here are some delicious crumbed chicken nuggets that are healthy, and will have your kids raving. (Or at least, had those I subjected them to scoffing them down like woah). Feeds 3-4ish.
For this you will need:
2 whole chicken breasts
2 cups of finely grated parmesan cheese (or any hard-ish strong flavoured cheese)
4 cups of breadcrumbs
5 whole eggs, whisked
1/2-1 cup of flour
Cooking oil, or better yet, butter/lard/dripping -- dripping is the leftover fat in the bottom of a pan after you cook a roast, such as beef or pork.
Salad:
Lettuce (I use iceburg)
2-4 tomatoes
2 carrots
1 full stick of celery
1/4-1/2 cup of sliced capsicum (1/2-1 whole capsicum. Uh, bell pepper)
1/4-1/2 cup of grated cheese.
Lemon or fresh squeezed orange juice
Method:
Salad is super hard. Seriously. Pull off two or three lettuce leaves, fold either side in around the stem part, roll it up, slice it finely. Shred it. Top and tail and peel the carrots. Grate them. Grate the cheese (wipe off the left over carrot first) toss all this into a bowl. Cut the leaves off of your celery, cut it into roughly equal segments, about as long as your index finger. Slice each segment in half lengthways, slice each half in half -again-. Add that to the salad mix. Take your capsicum. Grab it by the stem. Set your knife on the flesh next to the stem and cut down the length. Two sides ought to be plenty. Try to avoid taking any seeds with you.
By leaving the seeds and stem in place, the fruit as a whole will last longer in your fridge. :)
Lay out the sections of capsicum (bell pepper) and slice it lengthways. Finely. You really want very skinny bits of capsicum here. If it's too difficult, you can always cut it up crosswise and have diced capsicum. Top and tail the tomatoes, cut them into three slices, and then dice those slices into at least six individual segments. Three cuts one way, one crosswise through the middle, or if you've got bigger tomatoes, two cuts crossways. Toss it all into the bowl, and if you -like- you can add a sprinkle of lemon juice to help keep the salad good, -or- if you have an orange just laying around, slice it into quarters, and use one quarter, or one half of the orange juice. Squeeze it in your hand and get the zest and such all over your salad. Mmmn. Seriously. Fresh zesty orange juice goes SO WELL on iceburg lettuce it is ridiculous.
Now for the chicken nuggets! (once you know, you've cleaned your chopping board and knife)
If you're strapped for cash, you can get the chicken breast with skin -on-. This is usually three to five dollars per kilogram -cheaper- than skinless. Don't ask me why. It clearly costs five dollars per kilo for someone to pull the skin off of the chicken breast. Who knows.
If you have the chicken breast with skin, well, pull it off. There are parts where it will stick more determinedly, like on the edges of the breast, but on the whole it will peel off easier than a hot knife through butter. Just use a sharp knife to separate the skin from the meat (leaving as much meat behind as possible of course, the meat's the good stuff!) and discard.
Now comes the tricky part. You needa have roughly equal sized pieces of chicken to make the nuggets. So when dicing, cut the tear-drop of your chicken breast in half. Cut the fat end of the chicken in half lengthways, smoosh out the halves onto the cut end, and cut in half lengthwise -again-. They should be roughly of equal thickness now as the smaller 'half' of the chicken breast you resulted with in that initial cut. Now, slice through the meat so you have rectangular cube-ish pieces of chicken about a double-finger in width. Roughly. These are your awesome home made chicken nuggets, uniformity is for industry!
Once you have your diced up pieces of chicken, wash your hands, and the knife. Put the flour on a plate (or into a sandwich/freezer bag!) and put the chicken pieces into the flour. Make sure they are evenly, and -firmly- coated with the flour, that is, press the flour into the sweet chicken flesh and rub it in. They can sit there for a little bit. Now get your eggs out, crack them into a bowl, and using a fork whisk the living daylights out of them. When you have a pale yellow liquid, put your flour'd chicken into the egg.
Coat them evenly in the egg.
Oh right. On another plate (or another bag!) put the breadcrumbs. Using the 'small grating' side of your cheese grater (that you use for hard cheeses) grate your parmesan/hard cheese. Add this to your breadcrumbs and mix thoroughly.
Take the chicken out of the egg, giving each piece a little shake so the excess drops off, and then put them into the breading mixture. Coat them evenly, pushing them into the mix, before re-applying the egg. ....Aaand back into the breading mixture. Then you put the pieces onto a plate to rest, and chill again before use. Seriously. Double-dunking them in egg and breading makes them so much more delicious. The flour against chicken skin gives the initial coating of egg something to stick to, -and- ensures that when you're cooking them, the crumbing will stay on the chicken. And not on your pan.
Now I have dripping, so that's what I used, and dripping is like, a failsafe for having things -not- stick. You put in enough to uh, shallow-fry the nuggets. Basically so the melted fat of deliciousness is halfway up a nugget when it's in the pan. Cook until the crumbing is golden brown all over, and take care with the larger pieces of chicken, rest them on their side if it looks like the crumbing isn't cooking etc, as that means the middle of the chicken isn't cooking either.
It'll take you about 40 minutes to crumb the chicken, let the nuggets rest for an hour or two (if you have time, just 15-20 minutes in the fridge helps too! Like, make the nuggets first, put them in the fridge while you make your salad), and then put them into your frying pan. On mid-low heat. It should/may take about 20-30 minutes all up, to cook the nuggets, using a pair of tongs to turn them.
Mix your salad if you hadn't already, and put piles of salad onto the plates. Put your nuggets into a separate bowl, for carrying over to the plates, and dish up so everyone has a roughly equal serve (I did 8 nuggets per plate and there was plenty left over. For five minutes after eating, then they were all gone!) of the nuggets and salad. Supply sauces in a different little thing. I had sweet chilli, tomato (ketchup) and american mustard (I want mustard on everything lately!) for dipping in.
Enjoy! This has to be the easiest and simplest crumbing I have ever used/discovered, and it works -so- well. This is also a really really healthy dish, even if it -tastes- absolutely sinful. Nothing that tastes that good, is allowed to actually -be- good for you. :D
For this you will need:
2 whole chicken breasts
2 cups of finely grated parmesan cheese (or any hard-ish strong flavoured cheese)
4 cups of breadcrumbs
5 whole eggs, whisked
1/2-1 cup of flour
Cooking oil, or better yet, butter/lard/dripping -- dripping is the leftover fat in the bottom of a pan after you cook a roast, such as beef or pork.
Salad:
Lettuce (I use iceburg)
2-4 tomatoes
2 carrots
1 full stick of celery
1/4-1/2 cup of sliced capsicum (1/2-1 whole capsicum. Uh, bell pepper)
1/4-1/2 cup of grated cheese.
Lemon or fresh squeezed orange juice
Method:
Salad is super hard. Seriously. Pull off two or three lettuce leaves, fold either side in around the stem part, roll it up, slice it finely. Shred it. Top and tail and peel the carrots. Grate them. Grate the cheese (wipe off the left over carrot first) toss all this into a bowl. Cut the leaves off of your celery, cut it into roughly equal segments, about as long as your index finger. Slice each segment in half lengthways, slice each half in half -again-. Add that to the salad mix. Take your capsicum. Grab it by the stem. Set your knife on the flesh next to the stem and cut down the length. Two sides ought to be plenty. Try to avoid taking any seeds with you.
By leaving the seeds and stem in place, the fruit as a whole will last longer in your fridge. :)
Lay out the sections of capsicum (bell pepper) and slice it lengthways. Finely. You really want very skinny bits of capsicum here. If it's too difficult, you can always cut it up crosswise and have diced capsicum. Top and tail the tomatoes, cut them into three slices, and then dice those slices into at least six individual segments. Three cuts one way, one crosswise through the middle, or if you've got bigger tomatoes, two cuts crossways. Toss it all into the bowl, and if you -like- you can add a sprinkle of lemon juice to help keep the salad good, -or- if you have an orange just laying around, slice it into quarters, and use one quarter, or one half of the orange juice. Squeeze it in your hand and get the zest and such all over your salad. Mmmn. Seriously. Fresh zesty orange juice goes SO WELL on iceburg lettuce it is ridiculous.
Now for the chicken nuggets! (once you know, you've cleaned your chopping board and knife)
If you're strapped for cash, you can get the chicken breast with skin -on-. This is usually three to five dollars per kilogram -cheaper- than skinless. Don't ask me why. It clearly costs five dollars per kilo for someone to pull the skin off of the chicken breast. Who knows.
If you have the chicken breast with skin, well, pull it off. There are parts where it will stick more determinedly, like on the edges of the breast, but on the whole it will peel off easier than a hot knife through butter. Just use a sharp knife to separate the skin from the meat (leaving as much meat behind as possible of course, the meat's the good stuff!) and discard.
Now comes the tricky part. You needa have roughly equal sized pieces of chicken to make the nuggets. So when dicing, cut the tear-drop of your chicken breast in half. Cut the fat end of the chicken in half lengthways, smoosh out the halves onto the cut end, and cut in half lengthwise -again-. They should be roughly of equal thickness now as the smaller 'half' of the chicken breast you resulted with in that initial cut. Now, slice through the meat so you have rectangular cube-ish pieces of chicken about a double-finger in width. Roughly. These are your awesome home made chicken nuggets, uniformity is for industry!
Once you have your diced up pieces of chicken, wash your hands, and the knife. Put the flour on a plate (or into a sandwich/freezer bag!) and put the chicken pieces into the flour. Make sure they are evenly, and -firmly- coated with the flour, that is, press the flour into the sweet chicken flesh and rub it in. They can sit there for a little bit. Now get your eggs out, crack them into a bowl, and using a fork whisk the living daylights out of them. When you have a pale yellow liquid, put your flour'd chicken into the egg.
Coat them evenly in the egg.
Oh right. On another plate (or another bag!) put the breadcrumbs. Using the 'small grating' side of your cheese grater (that you use for hard cheeses) grate your parmesan/hard cheese. Add this to your breadcrumbs and mix thoroughly.
Take the chicken out of the egg, giving each piece a little shake so the excess drops off, and then put them into the breading mixture. Coat them evenly, pushing them into the mix, before re-applying the egg. ....Aaand back into the breading mixture. Then you put the pieces onto a plate to rest, and chill again before use. Seriously. Double-dunking them in egg and breading makes them so much more delicious. The flour against chicken skin gives the initial coating of egg something to stick to, -and- ensures that when you're cooking them, the crumbing will stay on the chicken. And not on your pan.
Now I have dripping, so that's what I used, and dripping is like, a failsafe for having things -not- stick. You put in enough to uh, shallow-fry the nuggets. Basically so the melted fat of deliciousness is halfway up a nugget when it's in the pan. Cook until the crumbing is golden brown all over, and take care with the larger pieces of chicken, rest them on their side if it looks like the crumbing isn't cooking etc, as that means the middle of the chicken isn't cooking either.
It'll take you about 40 minutes to crumb the chicken, let the nuggets rest for an hour or two (if you have time, just 15-20 minutes in the fridge helps too! Like, make the nuggets first, put them in the fridge while you make your salad), and then put them into your frying pan. On mid-low heat. It should/may take about 20-30 minutes all up, to cook the nuggets, using a pair of tongs to turn them.
Mix your salad if you hadn't already, and put piles of salad onto the plates. Put your nuggets into a separate bowl, for carrying over to the plates, and dish up so everyone has a roughly equal serve (I did 8 nuggets per plate and there was plenty left over. For five minutes after eating, then they were all gone!) of the nuggets and salad. Supply sauces in a different little thing. I had sweet chilli, tomato (ketchup) and american mustard (I want mustard on everything lately!) for dipping in.
Enjoy! This has to be the easiest and simplest crumbing I have ever used/discovered, and it works -so- well. This is also a really really healthy dish, even if it -tastes- absolutely sinful. Nothing that tastes that good, is allowed to actually -be- good for you. :D
No comments:
Post a Comment