Today's Nuggets; Tomorrow's Bouillon?

I apologize for the rant I'm about to go into. At this point, I can't decide which rant is about to begin. I'm just sort of free versing this.


Today I made Chicken Nuggets for the boys' lunch. I won't continue the healthy, happy, Hawkins chicken bit. You know...

So that's what I made. Here's why I made it.


I learned how to make fried chicken from Alton Brown's Good Eats show on the topic. It comes out great, every time. It's splendid. But over the last three years, I've become disenchanted with that show. When The Mad Fermentationist eulogized the show a couple weeks ago, I had my words.  I had depended on legitimate science and research-based fact from the show.  When the instructions for making beer were so overtly unresearched and wrong, it made me question the other "science" in the show.  It was no longer reliable.  It's not that I blame him for dumbing down beer making or making it accessible.  I'm ok with that.  But when things are so obviously wrong, it brings the whole enterprise into question.


So I have made fried chicken a couple times in the last month and those thoughts have come to mind.  Good Eats is/has come to a close and I'm not morning a loss.  I find that odd, especially since I keep my kosher salt in a cheese dish and have a cordless water kettle my wife got me because "He" had one.


But then there's this other part.  Unless you live in a cave or a mansion in Pakistan, you have seen the chicken sludge Jamie Oliver has made popular.  It's the stuff that chicken nuggets are made of.  It's pink, it's gooey, and it's reality.  Kids will eat it even after they see it in the primal form.  Not really a surprise.  Sure, soylent green isn't far behind.  Are we actually worried? I don't think so. Instead, we're sucking this stuff down with reincarnations of American Idol, The Apprentice, and Top Chef, equivalent forms of entertainment. Which is worse?  Your call.  We let our kids eat some of the junk. It's easy and satisfies some basic nutritional needs. At least we choose to think they do. But more importantly, they eat it.  (As I stare at plates with chicken and green beans remaining on the table after lunch.


So, we're bad, but we're trying to do better.  But to tie this back in, I'm hoping that what I talk about here in my journal (I wouldn't glorify it by calling it a blog) is real, undisguised truth as far as I am capable of revealing it.  


So Chicken Nuggets for lunch was a result of all that AND a taste test conducted by DadLabs.  So these are my chicken nuggets.  Made from Pastured, Happy Chickens.  They were very good.

Slice a Chicken Breast (which I removed from a whole chicken)

Turn that into Nuggets.

Add some herbs and spices.

Mix with some buttermilk and let it sit in the fridge overnight.

(and then I forgot to take some pictures...)

Strain out the chicken a couple hours before you want to cook it.  Dredge it in flour and set aside to let the crust develop. I've been using whole wheat flour because our AP is in storage.  I'd use a wire rack over a baking sheet, except that's packed too. 

Heat some oil in  a pan that will rise about halfway up your chicken bits when frying.  Get the temp up to about 350F, when sprinkling in some flour will cause bubbling.  Then add chicken so that they don't touch.  I did mine in two batches.

When it's browned sufficiently, turn the pieces.  With nuggets, this isn't long.  With whole pieces, this could be a good, long time.  Strain out the finished pieces and drain on paper towels, newsprint, butcher paper, paper sack, shards of glass...  (still with me?)

And then it looks like this (when you bake up some french fries to go with them... (But you've already seen this)

And that's my rant.