Chicken Nuggets for Grown Ups...

so you don't actually have to be 21 to watch or consume these chicken nuggets but the batter does contain vodka and beer and it's actually for a cooking purpose so as we learn from Kenji Lopez in the food lab adding alcohol and beer to our batter is gonna do a couple important things oh and if you don't want to learn the why behind the stuff the recipe starts right here anyway the carbonation in the beer instead of plain water will help leaven the batter creating a more open texture once the bubbles of carbon dioxide expand when the nuggets are fried also for beer specifically it contains extra flavor compounds and carbohydrates that are going to aid in the Browning of our nugget what about the vodka you may ask well the vodka in the batter dehydrates quicker than water so it will start browning and crisping faster more importantly Kenji says replacing alcohol and the batter will limit gluten development while great for bread dough's if you have too much gluten development for a batter you are gonna end up with a hard and tough crust on your nugget instead of one that is light and crisp okay so now that we have a reason to imbibe in chicken nugget form let's make these tasty numbers and I'll show you guys how to make a zippy little horseradish honey mustard as well to start we need to make our ground at chicken filling for me I'm using 1 pound of boneless skinless chicken thighs and if you thought it was going to bust out a meat grinder or a food processor nope I'm chopping this ground chicken by hand it only takes 5 or 6 minutes and it's way easier to clean a knife than a food processor or a meat grinder using a sharp knife begin slicing the chicken into thin slivers now if you don't want to ground the chicken this method will also work with just sliced up chicken chunks or if you don't like chicken at all you could use a piece of fish like cod or haddock and make some fried fish learning the method is the most important part now that it's into slivers I'm going to cut across them into even smaller chunks and I'm going to repeat this exact same process for each of the chicken thighs with the thighs sliced up I'm going to rock chop the chicken all over for a couple of minutes to get it even finer when the chicken resembles a rough ground beef we're going to add in some seasoning sprinkle 5 grams of salt over the chicken along with 3 grams of msg and begin kind of mincing the meat together and also for those curious MSG or monosodium glutamate provides umami and will enhance the meaty and savory taste of our chicken to further incorporate the seasoning and help the chicken bind to itself begin kneading and massaging the meat with your hands this is similar to mixing sausage like in my kielbasa video this mixing process is going to give us a tighter bind in the final chicken nugget you're gonna want to massage the chicken for about a minute or so at this point the chicken should stick together when squished in your hand for me this looks pretty good and it took just over 6 minutes in total to make ground chicken my hands so it's really not as laborious as you may think now grab a sheet of wax paper and place it on a baking sheet and begin forming the ground chicken into nugget shapes and you can feel free to make these as big or small as you want for me they're definitely a little bit on the bigger side nice and meaty chicken nuggets are always a winner in my book and if you guys wanted to add spices to the ground chicken before forming them you can feel free to but for these I really just wanted the salt and the MSG to really bring out that meaty chicken flavor with all of the nuggets form pop these in the fridge while we prepare the batter and the fry station first set a wok on the stove and pour in some peanut oil for frying if you want to know why I'm using the wok and peanut oil I explained that in my DoubleDown video so you guys can check that out if you want to and you're just gonna set this over medium-low heat while we prepare the batter to a large bowl add 100 grams of flour 25 grams of cornstarch 5 grams of baking powder 5 grams of salt 1 gram of cayenne pepper 1 gram of garlic powder and 1 gram of smoked paprika and you're gonna gently mix that together now in a separate measuring cup add 8 ounces of beer and 1.5 ounces or a shot of vodka and just going to set both of those aside in a separate bowl add another 50 grams of flour now you're gonna get the chicken nuggets out of the fridge and just drop those plain Nuggets into the flour and toss them until they are evenly coated then you can place them on a wire rack over a baking sheet and we'll set that aside as well [Music] back to our batter now slowly pour the beer mixture into the spice flour mixture and you're going to gently whisk this together you know be careful not to over mix the batter as that will cause the gluten development which remember is bad for frying it's okay if there are a few lumps of flour and in my test I liked it when the batter was much thinner like this so if you do want it a little bit thicker you can use less of the alcohol mixture with the batter ready let's head to the stove before we fry make sure the temperature of the oil is around 350 degrees Fahrenheit now working in small batches take the floured nuggets and dip them in the batter to coat both sides you're gonna let the excess batter drip from the Nuggets and then gently lower them into the oil I would probably only do five or six at a time in total you're gonna fry these until they are nice and golden brown and crispy all over mine took about four to five minutes and then you're gonna move the fried nuggets to the paper towel verify that the internal temperature is at least 160 degrees Fahrenheit then you're gonna immediately hit those nuggets with a nice sprinkle of salt and dab the excess oil off and move up to the wire rack portion you're going to repeat this exact process until all of the nuggets are done also another little pro tip while you're frying in between batches of Nuggets make sure you strain off that excess batter that ended up fried so it doesn't start to burn which will start splatters and make your kitchen smell more like fried oil so with all the Nuggets pried up and before we slice into those and just absolutely start devouring them let's make a quick horseradish honey mustard dipping sauce so in a bowl add two spoonfuls of mayo two spoonfuls of Dijon mustard one spoonful of horseradish and about one spoonful of honey and you're just gonna mix that until it is well combined and now we can get back to our nuggets so if we take a look at those nuggets they're beautifully golden brown and crispy on the outside but that crust is crispy but it's really light at the same time additionally when you slice into one you can see that nice kind of tight vine that we have from our ground chicken and again that's because of that kneading and massaging of the meat from earlier and once you dip these into that spicy horseradish honey mustard mayo I mean you are absolutely going to kill for these these are some chicken nuggets for grown-ups all right everybody full recipe will be linked down below to my website where I'll have these step-by-step process so you guys can make these for yourselves and I would highly highly suggest that these oh my gosh I don't even know how to describe just how unique like the fry with that batter is they're super light but still really crispy and I mean you guys saw in the video like how just like they're thick and they're juicy it like it tastes like you're eating real chicken like it's juicy like that from the thighs but then you get the crispness of the crust I mean and absolutely like tickles your your childhood memories but is this completely new form and texture that I mean McDonald's like or Burger King or wherever you get your chicken nuggets like cannot even get close to replicating that's gonna wrap it up for this video I'll catch you in the next one I'm gonna try not to eat the rest of this plate and peace you

Channel: Ethan Chlebowski

Views: 559,068

Keywords: Cook with E, chicken nuggets for grown ups, mcnuggets, chicken nuggets, chicken nugget recipe, chicken nugget asmr, how to make chicken nuggets from scratch, chicken nuggets recipe, homemade chicken nuggets, homemade chicken nuggets recipe, mcdonalds chicken nuggets, mcdonalds chicken nuggets recipe, chicken recipes, fried chicken, the food lab fried chicken, easy chicken nugget recipe, honey mustard dipping sauce

Id: Yjqff9cQ674

Length: 9min 18sec (558 seconds)

Published: Wed May 06 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/not_in_a_mood]

It’s big kid time