The Apocalypse of St Goujon
The other day I was in the freezer section of my local Woolies. I was looking for green beans I think, and had taken a wrong turn down the ‘crumbed-fried-and-frozen-abortion’ section. I was reeling down the aisle, seeing things no man should see… whilst staying sane at least. Pre-cooked and frozen meatballs in Napolitana sauce! Frozen chopped onions!! Frozen mashed potato!!! Frozen egg-whites!!!! The Gods weep! And then, my eyes fell upon it. A hideous frozen monstrosity. A foodstuff, so foul and abhorrent that Shub-Niggurath Herself, that vile abomination-Goddess, Devourer-of-All, would spit them out. The aforesaid abomination took the form of vivid orange oblongs, the colour of a cheap fake tan, packed in brightly coloured boxes. They were labeled in large red letters as ‘Goujons’, but I knew the truth. Oh yes, I knew. They were…
CHICKEN NUGGETS!!!
Chicken nuggets are the most horrible foodstuff known to humankind, a hideous, concocted aliment, made mostly of maize meal and mechanically separated chicken pulp, a food described by Judge Robert Sweet (US) as ‘McFrankenstein’. Oh, and they have a secret ingredient. Lighter fluid. Not much, to be fair, but still. Lighter fluid. Apparently, it stops the ‘nuggets’ from sticking to each other and the inside of the box.
Anyhoo. Just because your average ‘nugget’ is made from a ghastly paste which is formed in a mould, it doesn’t mean you can’t fry up pieces of beautiful chicken, suitably crumbed or floured and serve them.
Here’s my recipe for goujons of chicken.
Chicken Goujons
Ingredients.
* 1 free-range double chicken breast fillet, salt, pepper, 1 egg-white
* ½ cup cornflour (‘cornstarch’), salt, pepper, sweet paprika, garlic powder
* Olive oil
Trim the chicken of any bone, fat or gristle. Slice the chicken fillets into neat strips, about five millimetres thick, a centimetre and a half wide and as long as possible. Place the chicken into a large bowl, with some salt pepper and the egg-white. Mix the chicken and egg-white with your hands, making sure that the chicken is well coated with egg-white.
Mix the cornflour with some salt, pepper, paprika and garlic powder. Transfer it to a large bowl. Take the chicken out of the egg-white, trying to keep as much egg-white as possible in the bowl. Add the chicken pieces to the cornflour mixture and pat them with your hands, ensuring that the pieces are be completely coated in cornflour. Remove the chicken from the cornflour. Gently fry the chicken pieces, turning them as they fry, until they are golden on both sides.
Serves about four.
The French word ‘goujon’ literally means a small catfish. Usually tho’, the word is used to mean a small strip of fish or chicken, coated in seasoned flour or breadcrumbs and fried.
They’re VERY useful! You can use them for sandwiches or ‘wraps’, (‘wrap’ is noun? Apart from meaning like lady-cloak? Me talk English much goodly!) or make them into Chicken Parmigiana or something like that or just serve them with vegetables and gravy or Sauce Tomate. You can even serve them as finger food with a dip or sauce. They’re really useful.
Oh, and by the by. Nearly every recipe on the Net says that goujons are always crumbed and always deep-fried. This is because people from a, ahem certain country in the Western hemisphere, often LIKE deep-frying and crumbing. Mine, as you can see, are rolled in seasoned flour and shallow-fried.
