[Sca-cooks] Chicken McNuggets - Long

[Michael Gunter]

>Coated hens (well, chicken, I guess)
>One shall take hens and scald them and cut them apart and
>cut all the meat from the bones, and tear it into small
>pieces, and boil the bones. Then the bones are taken from the
>broth and the meat is wrapped around them, and
>sprinkled with ground cinnamon, and put this in a batter/dough
>made of wheat flour and beaten eggs, and bake it in butter or
>lard. That is called coated hens.

>one suggests shaping pre-cooked chicken meat around the bones
>to resemble chicken legs, then wrapping them in a pastry dough
>and baking them in an oven, the other suggests leaving out
>the bones, adding egg and flour to bind the meat, then to form
>oblong shapes that are dipped in batter and deep-fried.

>Nanna

Okay, last night the Barony of Atenveldt had an A&S challenge
between the Chivalry and the Baronial Guard. I'd forgotten all
about the bloody thing when I was reminded of it the day before
the competition. I had no idea what to do. I'd cook, of course,
but no idea what to get together and whip up between the time I
got off work and got to fighter practice. I didn't want to do
the usual cheesecake/quiche/daryols thing but wanted something
interesting, different but fun. This filled the bill wonderfully.
But researching and developing a new dish, especially one worded
as vaguely as this in a couple of hours is rather daunting.

I rushed to the grocery immediately after work and got two chickens,
a bag of unbleached flour, canola oil, ceylon cinnamon, butter,
and eggs. When I got home I put the chickens into some chicken stock
I had in the cabinet and water. I added salt and floated some
peppercorns just to add to the flavor a bit and let that boil
happily away. While the chicken was cooking I made a pasta dough
from the flour and eggs. Once that was made I wrapped it and
let it rest in the refrigerator.

After the chicken was cooked, I stripped the meat from the bones
and put the bones back into the chicken stock to boil off all
tendons and gristle. Once the chicken meat cooled I ground up the
cinnamon and threw meat and spice into my cuisinart to grind to
a nice mince. The recipe states that these are to be baked, but
I also gathered that they could be "cooked in butter or lard" with
a batter. So I decided to try several versions and deep fry a
batch.

Much to my dismay I discovered that one of the items I forgot to
take with me in the split was my pasta roller. So I rolled the
pasta dough out as thin as possible but not thin enough. And it
tended to curl up at the edges when fried.

I also made up, not a batter but a dipping station for the batter
portion. Next time I may try a batter.

I found the chicken didn't hold together well, even after being
boiled. Some kind of binder would help. Even adding a bit of
cream would have been an improvement. But, when squeezed enough
I could get a quenelle shape. Inserting the cleaned chicken
bones made life difficult. The meat would tend to fall away from
the bone. Wrapping the lot in pastry made things easier and they
were really cute when made correctly.

The pastry was a bit too thick and tended to curl up when fried
as I stated before. So they looked like funny yo-yos when cooked.
Or strange lollipops with the bone in them.

Squeezing them into the oblongs and then dipping them into flour,
egg, flour was the best method. Inserting a bone into the dipped
quenelle was also much easier after this. Deep-frying was fast
and efficient.

I was going to make a deep-fried batch as well as a baked batch
but, much to my surprise, I'd forgotten to turn on the oven! Well,
I said I was stressed.

I made up a batch and rushed to the A&S. I added a Lombard Mustard
(Honey Mustard) to add to the "Chicken McNuggets" theme. I'm happy
to say they got rave reviews. Even Selene, who was recovering from
a touch of food poisoning, enjoyed them.

I now have about two and a half pounds of minced, spiced chicken
that I need to do something with. I may make up a bunch of these
and take them to Atenveldt's Chocolate Revel (don't ask) this
weekend. I'll try to make a thinner paste as well as a batter
next time. I'll also bake some to see the difference.

But it is definately a worthwhile recipe that I will keep in
my "To Use" files.

Gunthar

_________________________________________________________________
Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com