No fry oven baked "fried" chicken drumsticks

Fried chicken is always delicious. But the frying makes a mess, makes the kitchen smell, and sometimes you don't want that in the house. Wanting to explore an alternative was the reason behind trying to make a no fry version of fried chicken.  

I received a request for this recipe after posting a photo of the finished dish on social media. It was a bit of an experiment, which is why there are no step-by-step photos. 

 

Panko breadcrumbs are Japanese breadcrumbs which are light, large and fluffy. You can get them in Japanese grocers and many Chinese grocers too (many have a "Japanese corner"). If you have never cooked with them, they are rather wonderful, and they are, to me, the best breadcrumbs you can buy. 

 

Some people's eyebrows might be raised by the use of Asian chicken bouillon. It really is a hero ingredient. We are using a Knorr Vietnamese bouillon right now. But Ajinomoto make a Japanese chicken bouillon which is available in See Woo and other far eastern grocers. Unless you actually have a tested, provable allergy to MSG, the chances are you are not going to be adversely affected by it. In fact, it is used to flavour many mass produced food items, including Pringles crisps. You have probably been eating it for years without realising it. 

 

MSG has been unfairly demonised, and the academic studies suggest, for the vast majority of people, it has no harmful effects. Perhaps that is a matter for a blog post of the future. I spent a very illuminating day going through the many scientific papers reviewing the evidence after the initial, purely anecdotal and non-scientific paper by Dr RHM Kwok in New England Journal of Medicine in 1968. Such a paper would not now be accepted by a contemporary medical/scientific/academic journal today.

 

If you are still worried, please note that the glutamic acid which is the basis of MSG is naturally occurring in some of the most delicious and umami rich foods: seaweed, aged parmesan, anchovies, miso, cured meats and ripe tomatoes. 

 

If you refuse to entertain the use of Asian chicken bouillon, then perhaps you could use Marigold organic vegetarian bouillon. Or perhaps you might add a little more salt.  

 

No fry oven baked "fried" chicken drumsticks 

 

Ingredients:

5-6 chicken drumsticks, skin on

1 egg

5 tablespoons plain flour

1 teaspoon paprika

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon Asian chicken bouillon (or Marigold veggie bouillon)

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

2 tablespoons panko breadcrumbs (although you might need more!)

20g unsalted butter

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 190 degrees C for a fan oven. Usually that means 20 degrees C higher for a non fan oven, but you may need to be more diligent about checking during the cooking at 210 degrees C.

2. Crack the egg and beat into a bowl large enough to fit a single chicken drumstick, and set aside.

3. On a large plate, place the flour, salt, paprika, bouillon powder, pepper and breadcrumbs. Mix thoroughly. 

4. Take the butter and melt in a foil lined baking tray with sides (or similar) in your preheated oven. Remove from the oven when melted. Don't burn the butter. 

5. Take each chicken drumstick, wipe dry with a piece of kitchen paper or a scrupulously clean tea towel, cover in the flour mixture, then coat in the egg, and finally roll around the breadcrumb mix. Place on a clean dry plate.

6. When they are all coated in egg and breadcrumbs, put on the baking tray sitting in the melted butter, and place it in the oven. Cook for 25 minutes, then turn. Then cook another 15 minutes.

Serve and enjoy!

Creamy chicken with mushrooms and cider

Ooh, November, you are naughty! The sudden drop in the temperature has left me a little lost for words. The autumnal jackets and macs I thought I could wear a little longer will have to be put away, in favour of my heavy, warm wintry coats. The gloves are being dug out for another season's service; thank goodness for my fleecy leather gloves! Anyone who knows me knows I always have cold, cold hands. I have fingers like ice cubes!

The household vacillations over whether to put the heating on or not have stopped. The heating is most definitely on. My new electric blanket is currently my favourite appliance; taking the chill out of my bed before I turn in at night.

Inspired by the weather, I have been thinking about internal central heating. By which I mean warming, comforting food for shivery days. Elizabeth David's Spicy Lentil Stew has been a lifesaver recently, a number of variations described by her in the recipe ringing the changes. Soups, curries, stews and slow braises are the things I crave when it's brisk and nippy.

So, on a cold Sunday, I thought of hearty pasta with a creamy and indulgent sauce. Tender chicken and just-cooked mushrooms with a touch of booze. Stews made with beer and ale favour darker meats. Chicken thighs (the brown meat of the chicken) cooked in vintage cider

This creamy chicken dish could be served up with rice, mash or baked potatoes. But I love pasta, so I used some Spatzle, a chewy egg pasta typically used in German, Swiss, Austrian and Hungarian cooking.

Creamy chicken with mushrooms and cider (with Spatzle pasta)

Serves 2-3 people (2 greedy portions or 3 normal portions)
 
Ingredients:
2 large echalion shallots (peeled, halved lengthwise and sliced finely)
4 chicken thigh fillets, sliced
160g chestnut mushrooms, quartered
3 anchovy fillets (preserved in olive oil or salt)
1 teaspoon paprika
60ml double cream
200ml vintage cider
3 tablespoons olive oil (2tbsp + 1tbsp)
25g (1oz) unsalted butter
3 tbsp finely chopped fresh Italian flat leaf parsley
Juice of half a lemon (optional)
250g egg spatzle pasta 
Freshly ground black pepper (to taste)
Freshly ground sea salt (to taste)

Time required:
10 minutes preparation
40 minutes cooking time

Equipment:
Two saucepans
Frying pan

1. Heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil in a saucepan, add the shallots and soften under a gentle heat for around 10 minutes. Do not allow to colour. 

2. Remove the shallots, keeping to one side, trying your best to leave as much of the oil in the pan. Add the remaining oil to the pan and heat up. 

3. Add the chicken in small batches. You want to seal the outside of the chicken slices so that they are no longer pink, buy you don't want to cook them completely. 

4. When you have cooked the last batch, put all the chicken to one side.  Hopefully, your pan still has residual olive oil in it. If not, you will need to add half a tablespoon. On a gentle heat, add the anchovies and paprika, and stir until the anchovies have disintegrated into the oil. 

 
 

5. Now put the shallots and chicken back, turn up the heat and stir until the chicken is coated with the oily mixture.

6. You will want to put a pan of water on for the Spatzle pasta. Mine took 11 minutes to cook, so you will need to ensure the pasta is cooking during the following two steps of the recipe, or you won't be able to bring the dish together.  

7. Add the cider to the chicken and "burn off" the alcohol smell on a medium-high heat. The cider will come to the boil and bubble. You aren't actually burning off the alcohol, but you will notice the smell becomes less boozy. When this happens (5-7 minutes), reduce the heat to a simmer and allow to simmer for another 7 to 10 minutes. 

 














8. In the meantime, in a frying pan melt the butter, then add the mushrooms. You want to cook these on a gentle heat for about 7 minutes until just tender. Do not overcook or they will become too soft and slimy to add to the chicken.

 



9. Add the cream to the cidery chicken and fold in the mushrooms. Let everything sit on the heat for a few minutes to get heated through. Add the parsley. Taste and season accordingly (if you used anchovies preserved in salt, you may find you don't need to add much salt). Add the lemon juice to your preference. 

10. Drain your pasta, and begin assembling the dish in bowls ready for serving. Put some pasta at the bottom of a bowl. Add the chicken with some of its sauce on top. Serve immediately. It would look prettier if you garnish with a little double cream and parsley, but I was too hungry and wanted to eat straight away!

Happy eating!

Cheater’s chicken satay

There is a perception that foodies, food authors and food bloggers only ever cook from scratch. Of course we must! Just look at the Instagram pictures and recipes we write and share! Naturally, we must painstakingly achieve each step with our own two hands…

I may be disowned by the fraternity by spilling the beans. Plenty of us cheat. Making our own pastry? Why? The wonderful Lorraine Pascale (you can’t argue with her baking expertise) advocates using frozen. Adam Creme, a foodie and award winning lawyer put it like this: “Life is too bleedin’ short to make shortcrust pastry unless it’s a special event” (via Twitter). Italians do make fresh pasta, occasionally, but to celebrate something. Valentina Harris once said that the celebration wasn’t just a mere birthday, but perhaps a graduation, or someone selling their farmhouse or similar; a landmark moment. 

Anna Symington, a fellow foodie and lawyer tweeted this: “only a crazy person makes puff”! I couldn’t agree more. For me, it’s too time consuming and difficult to be worthwhile. Although, if you want to make your own, go ahead. If I have to put together other elements of a meal, do I really want the faff of making my own mayonnaise, trying to maintain its consistency whilst mixing and pouring in my oil? 

In the weekend, I do sometimes set myself longer cooking projects. But I do that to enjoy the process. If you make your own pastry, mayonnaise, bacon or cheese because you love the task, fantastic. Carry on, and please do send me pictures of your handiwork.

All I am saying is, there’s nothing wrong with a little corner cutting, a little time saving and people should not be made to feel guilty for a little cheating. If it results in better taste, commensurate with the effort used, then I’ll do everything from scratch. Adam Creme puts it differently: “Part of the art of being a good cook is knowing which bits to cheat at". Brilliant!

Otherwise, there’s nothing wrong with cheating. As fellow food blogger Kavey said on Twitter “We don’t all live off the land anymore so no one does everything from scratch”.

So I am sharing how you can use a sachet of Lobo Chicken Satay mix, available from Chinese and Thai grocers shops, to make a delicious chicken satay better than your local takeaway. It is based on the instructions on the back of the Lobo packet, but with some Snigdha tweaks. For example, making 1kg of chicken would be suitable for 4 people (I have reduced to two), the cooking time on a domestic grill risks uncooked chicken (a food poisoning risk) and there were no amounts for the veggies for the cucumber salad.

Cheater’s chicken satay

(Serves 2)

You will need:

Ingredients: 

1 pack Lobo Chicken Satay

500g pack skinned, boneless chicken thighs

1 can coconut milk (will be used for both marinade and sauce)

3 tablespoons ground nut oil

Half a cucumber, halved again lengthways and sliced into 5mm slices

1 large shallot, halved and sliced finely lengthways (I mean the echalion “banana” shallots; if you are using the very small Thai shallots, you will need 3-4)

1 birds eye chilli, seeds removed, diced as small as you can manage (or halve if you want it less hot)

4 tablespoons white rice vinegar

5 tablespoons caster sugar

¾ (three quarters) teaspoon ground sea salt

1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh coriander leaf

Equipment:

Bamboo skewers

Grill pan

2 small saucepans (even a milk pan will be the right size)

2 non-metallic bowls, 1 lidded or capable of being covered

A tall bottle, tall enough to contain the bamboo skewers

Measuring jug (or equivalent)

Grill, Hob, Kettle, non-metallic spoons, whisk

Gloves; food preparation gloves and oven gloves

Aluminium foil

Method:

1. Put the kettle on, boil some water. Empty into the tall bottle and soak the bamboo skewers. The longer they soak in hot water, the better. Hot water will help stop the skewers from burning when grilling. 

   

2. Remove excess fat and other inedible stuff from the chicken thighs. Slice into half inch long strips. 

3. In the lidded (or coverable) non-metallic bowl, empty 60ml of the coconut milk, plus the ground nut oil. Whisk together lightly until combined.

4. Open the marinade mix sachet, tipping it into the bowl, and whisk lightly until mixed. 

5. Put your food preparation gloves on, because the yellow marinade has a lot of turmeric in it and will dye your fingernails yellow.  

6. Add the chicken strips and with your gloved hands, ensure the strips are coated thoroughly in the marinade. 

7. Put the lid on the bowl, and put in the fridge for 50 minutes.  

8. Open the sauce mix sachet, tip it into one of the saucepans. Add 180ml of the remaining coconut milk and whisk lightly to combine and ensure there are no lumps. Put on the hob on a low heat. 

9. Remove the chicken from the fridge and leave at room temperature for 10 minutes.  

10. Heat the sauce for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat, and leave to cool. 

11. Line a grill pan with aluminium foil to avoid marinade spillage during cooking and put to one side. Donning your food preparation gloves once more, make up your chicken skewers. The strips should be capable of being threaded 3 times onto the skewer (as if you were sewing running stitch). Push the chicken pieces up tightly together on the skewers. Place on your foil wrapped grill pan.

12. Heat the grill to a high setting. I used the highest setting on my grill which is 270 degrees Celsius.

13. Cook each side of the skewers for 3-4 minutes, turning 4-5 times. You will need to cook the chicken for 12-15 minutes, or longer, depending on how fierce the heat on your grill is. 

14. For the cucumber salad, here are your instructions:

15. Serve and enjoy.