Chicken Nudges

Chicken Nudges

I have a few staples on my list that I make fairly regularly because I know they're good and they're simple to freeze and make later and still be 'fresh' enough my brain doesn't rebel against the idea of eating them. I should be less of a food snob but when I -have- to eat something repeatedly, I feel extremely depressed and my mood sinks. Food security is security for me. If I can find some way to eat something in the kitchen that I want and that appeals to me, I feel as if I can conquer the world. If not, I start to wonder what's next. A bit silly, I know but it's one of those ever so lovely quirks I have.

But one thing that I can make and have on hand and use in a million different ways is chicken nuggets. Now, I make them a bit bigger, but not full size tenders so that I can cut them up and use them in stirfry (which A adores) or I can dip them in whatever I have and so on. The possibilities are limitless. There are a few options on how to do this, but my basic recipe for GF chicken nudges is as follows.

Difficulty: Basic Basic
Time: About an hour
Mise en Place

• Sheet Pan
• Parchment Paper
• 3 flat containers/bowls/etc
• Deep fryer or pan deep enough to fry (Set at 360)
• Frying oil (Canola/Peanut/Vegetable/etc)
• Slotted metal spoon if using pan
• Metal tongs
• Gallon Plastic Ziplock 
• Hand blender (optional) Whisk or fork also works, just not as well.

Ingredients

1-2 cups of Masa Harina (otherwise known as Corn Flour. It should be in your Hispanic/Mexican aisle in the grocery) or Sorghum flour
4-5 eggs/yolks/whites/some mixture therein (or egg replacement = w/water)
3 cups coconut flour (Optional) or GF bread crumbs
1 Tbsp each Paprika, Garlic Powder,
1 cup of pickle juice/buttermilk/ milk and vinegar (1cupmilk to 1 TBSP Vinegar)
2 lbs of Chicken


Preparation: Cut the chicken into the size pieces you want. Soak the chicken in the plastic bags along with the acid base (pickle juice/buttermilk) for about an hour before you need to start prepping.

It's really pretty basic. I make sure there are 3 flat bottomed bowls or tupperware that are big enough. I scramble all of my eggs with a hand blender since it makes sure there is no random proteins causing clumps of eggs that will then drop off. Then lay some parchment paper down on  a sheet pan that's small enough to go in your freezer. And yes, I have a tiny kitchen so things go where things fit. In this case, in front of the microwave. Though now, even it's been moved.


Once it's soaked enough, you grab them out of the bag with your left hand, this becomes your 'wet' hand. Drop a piece of chicken into the flour. Take  your right hand and coat the chicken, then -drop- it into the egg mixture. Coating it with your left hand then drop it into the crumb or coconut mixture. Coat again with the right hand and lay down on the parchment covered sheet pan. This method of dipping will keep your hands somewhat clean and mobile. Crusted fingers =/= yummy.

Fill the pan, then stick in the freezer for about 20 minutes until chicken is solid and crumb isn't going to just slide off. You can fry at this point or you can coat it all again for a second layer then freeze again but that's up to you. This is also the point to turn your deep fryer up to get it to heat up in time. If you're wanting to make this for long term use, ignore the deep fryer bit and let them freeze a bit more solidly and then you can just drop them into a CLEAN ziplock bag and use them like any other prepared fried chicken bag.

Once you've got enough crumb on your nuggets, it's time to turn up the heat. Dropping enough for one layer into your deep fryer basket (but no more), drop them into the ready oil (usually, this is when the green light is lit). Set your timer for 2 minutes. Then bring them out of the oil and shake the excess oil off before dropping them again for 2 more minutes. Repeat this a second and third time. By the time they are done, you should have cooked it for 6-7 minutes and have a deep golden brown like this:

The sauce is whatever you want to use. I made my own marinara for this shot. I've also taken and used hot wing sauce and bleu cheese dressing (Marzetti's is GF)

A week in pictures

Okay, so no 'new' recipe today, but I've had a bit of fun this past week playing with the cake flour stuff, and then the Brazilian Cheese Bread. Then A had a truly brilliant idea. The Cheese Bread puffs up like dough...and it rolls like dough...why not see if you can make a pizza with it. So we did.

First of course, we preheated the oven to 425. We took about 900grams of the dough and rolled it out thin until it fit into a baking pan and oiled the pan. Docking the middle of the dough so it wouldn't poof out as much with  a fork, we then prebaked it for about 10 minutes.

Then loaded it up with sauce, asparagus, and chicken mozzarella sausage. We used Daiyu cheese for the topping since we'd been wanting to try out how it tasted/melted etc in case we wanted to use it in the restaurant. I wasn't really expecting to like it too much, but it actually wasn't too bad. However, I was much happier when I did a sausage and cheese pizza on Friday night with the dough. The Vegan cheese was good, but I'm not sure I'd use it unless I couldn't have dairy anymore. That's just me being picky though.

With the Daiyu Cheese

Blue Cheese Potato Soup

When icky weather comes, I have a few recipes that I fall back on. But I am notorious for not ever doing things quite the same way twice. That's why someone needs to be in the kitchen with me writing everything down or I'd never be able to duplicate it or tell anyone about it.

Well, last week Louisiana was having one of those "Hey, here's a hint that it might still not be 90 degrees completely year round" days and I woke up chilled and grumpy. Well, luckily, A knows to just send me to the kitchen and leave me alone for a while and I'll get over it. I was debating what to fix when my eyes fell upon the russet potatoes we'd gotten on sale. I love my reds for most things usually but I knew I needed to use the russets so I decided to just make potato soup. It was warm, comforting and just a bit easy, didn't have to make my sleep addled brain really think.

So I get out the garlic and I'm about to throw the garlic in a little oil for a quick saute and I realize I have leftovers from a pack of creole seasoning mix I'd gotten a few days earlier. That is they take the celery, onion, parsley, garlic and stuff and make it into a pre-made mix you can buy in the produce section. So I saved myself some trouble and sauteed that  and added some extra garlic for the heck of it. Once I got it going through, my brain perked up and went...I want to do something different. This is the time to fear. Because those words usually signal either something amazing or something horrifying. When it came time to add the cream base to the soup....I threw in blue cheese dressing. And just that simple, a nice sharpness  swept through the soup and spiked it with just enough energy to be a bit of a perk up and go and it was amazing. It isn't going to last long around here, I can already tell.


Difficulty: A few techniques are required, but simple.
Time: About an hour
Note: The celery, bell peppers, garlic, parsley can be subbed out for a portion of creole seasoning mix if you happen to have it in your neck of the woods. The amounts aren't really exact with this recipe. It's up to you and what you feel like.
Mise en Place

• Stew Pot (6 qt or larger)
• Large Bowl
• 2 Medium Mixing Bowl
• Hand Blender(or Blender or Food Processor)
• Garlic Press (If you don't have already minced garlic)
• Cutting Board
• Knife
• Spoons (slotted, solid, and ladle)
• Whisk

Ingredients

• 2 Tbsp Vegetable or Olive Oil
• Large pinch of salt
• 7-8 Large Potatoes (Russets are best due to natural starch levels)
• Bacon or Bacon Bits
• Better than Bouillion Chicken Base or 32oz Chicken/Vegetable Broth and a bit of water (Not stated GF but haven't had a problem with it yet)
• 1-2 Medium Onions (chopped fine)
• Parsley (1/4 cup or less)
• 3 split stalks of celery (chopped finely)
• 1 bell pepper (chopped fine)
• 2-3 Healthy (heaping) Tbsp of minced Garlic (see Mise en place)
• 1 cup Mozz cheese (shredded cheese works best but not fake cheese shreds)
• 1 cup Cheddar cheese (again, shredded)
• 2/3 Cup Sour Cream
• 2/3 Cup Yogurt plain full fat (or whatever level of fat you prefer
• 1-1 1/2 Cup Blue Cheese Dressing (needs to have actual chunks of blue cheese in it such as Marzetti's Ultimate Blue Cheese or Chunky Blue Cheese) dependent on how strong you want the flavor to be.

I find this all easiest to do to make it as much of a one pot meal as possible. Wash and chop your potatoes and place them in the large bowl. Make them about twice as big as you want the chunks in your soup to be. If you don't want it chunky, make them about an inch, we can take care of the chunks later. Don't remove the skins unless you really have to. It makes them so tasty!

Chop the celery, onions, parsley, and mince the garlic if it's not alreadyTake your pot, spread a little oil in it (adding bacon if you want to and of course, who wouldn't want to) and turn the heat up medium.Once the heat is ready, throw in your chopped vegetables (not the potatoes) and sweat them. A little tangent hear. Sweating is similar to sauteing but you're not trying to brown the items, you're just wanting to bring the moisture to the surface of the vegetable. Salt will help with this as well. Back to the point here. Basically, the oil should be hot but not sizzling. If it's too hot, you'll notice when you throw the vegetables in. You should here a gentle sizzle. It shouldn't be loud or popping all over the place. Sprinkle a little salt to help with the moisture draw.  Keep the food moving!

Add the garlic and parsley. and cook until the onions are almost but not quite see through. They'll look like they are really shiny. Once that's done, lower the heat to about low-medium and add the potatoes. Cover with the broth/water until just covered or just the water till just covered. Then add 2 tsps of the Better than Bouillon (or to taste). Don't add a lid but bring the water to a boil, stirring occasionally to make sure that the bouillon or broth/water is mixing well and no potatoes are burning on the bottom. After adding the bouillon you can also turn the heat back up to medium.

Once the potatoes are boiling, take a slotted spoon and bring a small piece out, run it under cool water and taste it to make sure that it's cooked through. If not, leave it at a boil for a while longer. While this last part is taking place, take that bowl you'd had the potatoes in earlier and place the sour cream, yogurt and blue cheese dressing. Whisk it all together.

Lower the heat down to the low temp but not quite keep warm. Remove about half of the potatoes from the pot and strain out the broth (if you want it chunky)Now taking a ladle, whisk some of the potato/broth mixture into the cream mixture a little at a time. Try to make it mostly broth if possible. If you want it smooth, leave all of the potatoes in. Using the hand blender, blend the desired amount of potatoes smooth. Add back any chunks and stir well.  This will help the cream not to break up when it's added into the main pot. Do this three or four times to get the temperature of the cream up.

Then still whisking, add the cream mixture into the potato mixture and stir. Then add the shredded cheeses until they are all nice and melted in. Soup is done. Spoon into bowls and serve with your favorite gluten free bread (my favorite recipe coming soon)