When I made these goujons for my daughters’ lunch today I had the plate above by the kitchen window ready for photographing. When the oldest and middle daughter walked into the kitchen and saw them they both said, “Why don’t you serve a plate of chicken nuggets to us like this?” and then the oldest added, “..you’re just like that famous tv cook who cooks for the show but doesn’t cook for her children!” she was referring to Nigella Lawson, who’s son when little said his mummy didn’t have time to cook.
Half of my cooking life I spend doing this, making the food most of us take for granted possible for my allergy suffering daughter. I’m pretty pleased with these because they taste exactly like they should, crispy exterior with a tender juicy inside. Over the last few years I have experimented with soaking the meat in all sorts of things such as coconut milk to see if I could get the breadcrumbs to stick to the meat better. I discovered the best result was using the very simple trick of drawing out the meat’s natural water content to the surface by salting the meat an hour or two before coating it in the breadcrumbs. You don’t have to blitz the bread ultra fine in fact it benefits if a few strands are a little coarse and stick out of the meat as it will create a very crispy crust just like using Japanese breadcrumbs, panko.
I always have plenty of my own bread lying around getting dry and I whiz it with fresh parsley (my way of clutching to healthy notes since parsley is full of vitamin C) and pop into the freezer until I need it. You can marinade the meat in all sorts before coating or use different spices and herbs in the breadcrumb but I keep it simple for the kids and they love them.
Egg-free and Dairy-free Chicken Goujons
- Chicken breasts
- Good quality bread slightly stale
- A good handful fresh parsley
- Salt
- Flavourless vegetable oil like sunflower for deep frying
Cut the chicken breast into thin strips across the breast, doesn’t matter so much being the same length but it does matter they’re the same thickness in order to cook in the same time.
Sprinkle salt over the chicken and if possible leave it between an hour to two hours and this will bring some of the meat’s water to the surface that will help the breadcrumbs to stick. Whiz the bread and parsley together into the finest breadcrumbs your machine does, but it’s fine to have some left a little coarse.
Lay the pieces of chicken on the breadcrumbs and press firmly to stick as much breadcrumb as possible.
Heat up vegetable oil until it’s ready for frying, to test it place a little piece of bread into the oil and if it fries into a golden colour but not too quickly then it’s ready. After frying the chicken if you have breadcrumbs still left you can throw them into the oil and fry them too, drain and cool them and they’ll store in a container for sprinkling over dishes for extra texture…ok it’s not healthy food I know.
Because there’s no egg to stick the bread to the meat there will be quite a few breadcrumbs falling off during the frying that I scoop up in between frying and save them for adding texture to other dishes.
Today I manage to have the oil a little too hot in the first batch of frying and then cooled it down too much giving me the different tones of breadcrumbs I have here.
Once I remove the chicken and place it on the paper towels I will then move them again when cool enough to handle and place on top of more dry paper towels so they maintain very crisp while I finish the rest.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Crispy and delicous. Love the brading!
Nisrine
These look far easier and less messy than the traditional flour, egg, breadcrumb you use for goujons, I might try that next time, they look very crispy just the same. Thanks Azelia for the recipe.
Hi Sarah & Nisrine – yes they really are crispy and you don’t miss the traditional coating of the egg.
Hi, I was browsing egg free, dairy free chicken nuggets recipe for my toddler who has allergies and came upon ur site..this is a great post and very nice write up…love it…Thanks for posting this…looking forward to more such allergy friendly recipes from you.
Best wishes for u n the family, God bless.
Thank you! Thank You and Thank you once again! i finally fed my kid chicken nuggets (he cries every time he sees a kid eating them and he can’t because of his egg allergy!) These are not just good, these are actually better than the real thing!
I’m so glad Nawara you have a recipe for your son he likes. I know exactly how it feels when your child wants something like everybody else but can’t have it. Thanks for letting me know, lovely to hear.
Just found your site and made these chicken nuggets for my daughter (she is allergic to milk, eggs and corn). I think they taste great so I hope she likes them! Loved the simplicity of the recipe with sourdough bread and parsley. Thanks again!