Snacks

Sticky Barbecue Crack Chicken

chicken, comfort food, dinner

As you can probably guess, January ‘new year, new me’ isn’t happening. I’m already awesome, I only plan to get awesome-er. Definitely a word. The best way for me to do this is by continuing to make absolutely-not-healthy-at-all food like this affectionately named American concoction, Crack Chicken. Crack chicken seems to take many forms, some people cook it in a slow cooker with ranch dressing and bacon, some people bake it whole smothered in barbecue sauce, but this is my version, deep-fried in breadcrumbs, smothered in sauce and baked in the oven until sticky, juicy and a bit crispy. If, like me, you’re 110% over January, I’d suggest you join me in making this for your tea tonight.

Ingredients

  • About 4-6 chicken breasts(depending on how hungry you are/how many people you want to not share this with) cut into thin strips
  • Roughly 200g plain flour, just enough to coat the strips
  • 3 eggs
  • 50ml milk
  • 250g breadcrumbs, any is fine, panko is preferred

For the sauce

  • 300ml Barbecue sauce (you favourite, or mine)
  • 100g muscavado sugar
  • juice of 3 limes
  • lots of cracked black pepper
  • teaspoon of smoked chopped garlic (this is the best, but you can go with unsmoked)
  • a few drops of Tabasco (if you’re feeling daring)
  • finely chopped parsley
  • 25ml vinegar

Also be sure to have a pan of vegetable oil ready for your frying, heat about 1 litre of oil on a medium/high heat until you can fry a cube of bread golden in about 30 seconds. This should take about 10 minutes

Let’s get cracking! First of all, preheat your oven to 180C. Get all of your sauce ingredients into a saucepan and let them simmer together on a low heat until the sugar has dissolved. In 3 separate bowls, have your flour, milks and eggs and breadcrumbs(known to us chefs as a pané mix) and coat you chicken in each in that order until they’re fully crumbed. Next, place your chicken pieces carefully into your hot oil and fry until golden. Take your sauce off the heat and once the chicken is ready, stick it all in the saucepan. Give it all a mix around so the chicken is fully covered and transfer the whole lot onto a baking tray with greaseproof paper, spacing them out a bit so they don’t stick together. Bake for about 15 mins, remove from the oven, check they’re cooked and then bung them all in your mouth!

Easy!

Mozzarella dippers with Pesto Mayonnaise

Cheese, Snacks

I was feeling seriously peckish for something naughty. Not Ryan Reynolds naughty(another time maybe) but TGI Friday’s naughty. There was some pizza mozzarella in the fridge, breadcrumbs as always in the cupboard and so there was one obvious answer. Deep-fried, gooey yet crispy mozzarella dippers with a punchy kick of basil-pesto mayo. Make these tonight, they’re Deadpool easy.

 

Ingredients

  • 1 packet of pizza mozzarella (not fresh, it really won’t work with fresh)
  • 200g plain flour
  • 300g breadcrumbs (this’ll work with anything, plain, panko, whatever you can find)
  • 3 eggs
  • 200ml milk
  • 2tsp salt
  • 2tsp pepper
  • 1tsp sweet smoked paprika
  • 1tsp dried oregano
  • 1tsp fajita seasoning (completely optional but it made these babies just plain sexy)
  • 3tbsp mayonnaise
  • 1tbsp pesto
  • about 1lt of vegetable oil for frying

 

First things first, find a decent sized saucepan for deep-frying, make sure you can fit the oil in with plenty of room for your dippers, those things can spit worse than cat cornered by cucumbers. Heat the oil gently until you can drop a piece of bread in it and it’s golden within 2 minutes, or if you’ve got a thermometer, heat til it’s about 160C/170C. Don’t have it too hot or you’ll colour the outside of the dippers but your inside will still be firm, we want gooey. Have 3 bowls ready for your bread crumbing, one for your flour, one for your eggs and milk and one for the breadcrumbs and seasoning. Cut the mozzarella into fingers, mine were about ½ and inch in width and the length of the pack. As long as they slightly resemble these, make them whatever thickness you fancy, though remember, the thicker you make them, the more temperamental the cooking is likely to be. You’ll end up with dark brown coats and firm, resilient middles. Once you’re happy with the fingers, chuck them into the flour. Give them a good shake-up to make sure they’re well coated and move on to the egg mix. Coat them well and throw into the breadcrumbs. Don’t worry if there are bald patches on them, you’ve got to dip them back into the egg and breadcrumbs again, just to be safe, you don’t want to be losing all your cheese in the pan after all. When you’re ready and the mozzarella is appropriately dressed leave them to one side and quickly make your mayo, the easiest thing ever, just by mixing the mayonnaise and pesto together in a bowl. When the oil is ready to go, very carefully lower the dippers into the pan using a spatula or something similar. Cook them until they’re golden brown on the outside and completely melted inside. That’s it. You’re excused. Go and eat those b*****s.

 

 

The best Spinach, Roquefort and Almond dip.

Snacks

So this was an accidental gem that I conjured up, bored and hungry but wanting something relatively healthy. It very quickly became a firm favourite with my friends, something I was definitely not expecting(sometimes fussy eaters can seriously surprise you). It’s so easy, but you do need a blender for this, I have a Vitamix and it’s makes the most amazing things, this being one of them. It’s best with a selection of crudités, but still amazing with tortilla chips or oven baked pittas.

Ingredients

  • 500g bag of spinach, washed and thoroughly drained pleased
  • 300g roquefort cheese
  • 250g flaked almonds
  • ½ lime juice
  • salt and pepper to taste

As I said, this is so straightforward to make, just bung your spinach into the blender, really mash it down and make sure it’s completely smooth. Then add everything else, keep blending until it’s all smooth and silky. Get the lot into jars, label, and keep them in the fridge til cool. This dip will keep for about a week in jars in the fridge.