It’s Wednesday and you are tempted to order out. Or, worse yet, put that aging frozen pizza in the oven. Please don’t do either.
This recipe is easy and I will give you lots of prep tips so you can do it fresh when you get home.
What you need to serve 2-3 persons:
Nuggets
• 3 boneless free-range chicken breasts
• ¼ bag of baked organic potato chips – all the stuff that no wanted. Stale is fine.
• ½ cup of panko or spelt crumbs (for diet – spelt is healthier – sheer taste go for panko)
• 1 teaspoon all-purpose organic flour – gluten-free types use brown rice flour
• 2/3 cup of cold buttermilk or whole milk (secret – you can use 1 tablespoon organic fat-free sour cream in 1/3 cup of whole milk plus a bit of water to create a buttermilk like taste)
• Pinch of sea salt
• ½ teaspoon fresh cracked pepper
• Dry parsley
• Pinch of cayenne
• Optional: spray olive oil
Sweet Chilli Sauce
• 3 peeled organic garlic cloves (taste so much better than regular)
• 2 fresh red chillies – either Serrano or Jalapeño
• ½ teaspoon of dry red chillies – if you want more fire power
• ¼ cup organic cane sugar
• ¼ cup organic apple juice at room temperature
• ¾ cup purified water (tap affects the taste)
• ¼ teaspoon of sea salt
• ¾ tablespoon of cornstarch
• 2 tablespoons of room temperature water
Tools: 2 bowls – one to put milk in and one to put crumb mixture in, measuring cups, mini-prep plus, non-stick foil, large baking pan with minimum 1” walls (not a flat cookie sheet), small saucepan, covered glass jar to store sauce, saran wrap.
Directions:
Make the chilli sauce the night/day before. Why? Less prep day of and it tastes much better.
In the mini-prep plus combine all ingredients accept the last 2. Keep the chillies with seeds in.
Transfer this to a small sauce pan and boil under medium high heat. Once at a boil lower the heat to medium and stir for about 3 minutes or until the garlic and pepper pieces have softened. Lower the heat to simmer.
Combine the cornstarch and water to make a light paste. Pour this into the saucepan with the other ingredients. Stir for about a minute and you should get a thicker sauce with suspended bits of chilli and garlic.
Cool on counter and then put in an airtight jar and store in refrigerator.
This makes enough for a meal for 2 or 3. You can just double, triple quantities if you want to keep some of this on hand. Last 1 to 2 weeks if properly stored and refrigerated.
Nuggets
Put the meat in the fridge to thaw partially overnight. Give yourself 10 minutes in the morning and while the meat is still a little frozen cut it into 1.5” squares. Refrigerate this in a little olive oil and cover the bowl with plastic or a lid.
Directions
Pour the milk into a wide bowl. Soak chicken pieces for 20 minutes or while you prepare the crumb mixture. Make sure both sides soak up some milk. Do not miss this step as this is what makes them so tender.
After 10 minutes preheat the oven to 400C.
Add all the dry ingredients into the mini-prep plus and pulse briefly. Pour this dry mix into the other mixing bowl.
Prep the baking pan with foil.
Now dip each of your chicken pieces in the dry mix. Make sure they are coated well and evenly.
Place in the lined baking pan.
Optional: spray foil surface with olive oil and tops of nuggets to make extra crispy
Bake for 20 minutes. I like to put the sauce on top of the oven to bring it to a room-slightly warm serving temperature.
Let cool for 5 minutes and serve.
This looks ambitious on first read – but what I like is that I can break it down over 2 days. I want to try this on Sunday and hope my troops let me have enough leftovers to throw in with some veggies for a salad on Monday. Deelishiousness.