In his weekly series, Brian Stormont looks at how we can recreate our favourite takeaway meals at home.
For this week’s Friday Fakeaway, I have gone a little bit leftfield by combining a couple of favourites from two of our most popular fast food joints – breaded chicken KFC-style and McDonald’s fries.
I will be completely honest when I say I am not a massive patron of these kind of takeaway outlets. I do occasionally pop in with my daughter and try something out, but in the main I am the taxi to the drive-through.
If I do partake, however, I enjoy any sort of breaded or fried chicken from KFC or pinching my daughter’s fries from a visit to McDonald’s.
So I thought I’d give myself the best of both worlds.
A take on the fries is fairly simple, and my guess is that using the beef stock below imitates them being fried in beef dripping.
The chicken is a joy as it’s so quick. Just take time slicing your chicken into two to ensure it’s evenly done.
You won’t find this in KFC but it’s not so different flavour-wise and it’s lovely and crispy.
I preferred to bread and shallow fry my chicken, but you could deep fry if you so desire or bake in the oven. It’s really up to you.
Also, what I have learned is that you can play around with the spices you include with your breadcrumbs and create your very own flavours – or it’s delicious with no spices, just shallow fried in the breadcrumbs with a little salt and pepper.
This is a quick and easy way to enjoy breaded chicken and fries.
Ingredients
(Serves 2)
For the chicken:
- Two large chicken breasts
- ½ tsp salt
- 1tsp pepper
- 1tsp paprika
- 1 tsp dried mixed herbs
- 1 tsp dried tarragon
- ½ tsp cayenne pepper
- 1 tbsp of vegetable oil
- 50g breadcrumbs (I used a cheap supermarket own brand)
- 100g of plain flour
- 1 beaten egg
For the fries
- Any shop-bought frozen French fries.
- One beef stock cube dissolved in about 100mls of boiling water
- Salt and pepper
Method
For the chicken:
- Combine all the dry spice ingredients with the salt and pepper, then mix with the breadcrumbs.
- Slice your chicken lengthways to create two similar sized pieces and place between a piece of clingfilm or in a poly bag.
- Gently hit the chicken with a rolling pin or heavy pot until it flattens out a little until it is escalope size.
- Put in order your flour, beaten egg and breadcrumbs. Then coat the escalope in the flour, then the beaten egg and the breadcrumbs.
- After the four escalopes are coated, either shallow fry in a frying pan until golden brown, usually 2-3 minutes on each side or bake in the oven at about 180c for 15-20 minutes until golden brown.
For the fries:
- Pre-heat your oven to 180c.
- Using a pastry brush, coat your fries in the beef stock, then sprinkle with salt and pepper and cook for 20 minutes.
Serve with some iceberg lettuce, tomato and mayo.