Buttermilk Chicken Nuggets

What do you do when you have half a carton of almost expired buttermilk? And a piece of chicken breast that has been in the freezer since last year? No idea?

That's when Mr Toby Corn's recipe came in handy. Double Dipped Buttermilk Chicken Nuggets was the obvious answer and a God send I must say. Besides, I have been very curious about buttermilk fried chicken.

From what I read, the acidity of the buttermilk tenderizes the meat and what you get is very tender and moist fried chicken. So before I do a full blown buttermilk fried chicken, I think it is a good idea to do a trial run with chicken nuggets.

I defrosted the chicken breast and then placed it in a freezer bag with enough buttermilk to cover the meat. I did not have any pickle juice, so I left that out. I only added some Cajun seasoning. No salt was added because the seasoning is salty enough. This was left to sit in the fridge overnight.

The next day, I cut the chicken breast into small pieces. Then I dredged each piece with flour which has been seasoned with Cajun seasoning. All these coated chicken nuggets were place on a wire rack.

Then, each piece of chicken nugget is dipped into buttermilk (again, seasoned with Cajun seasoning) and then dipped into the seasoned flour again. What you get is a thicker coating of flour this time.

And very gunky fingers. I couldn't help taking a shot of my fingers just like what Toby did.

Then heat up the oil and fry the nuggets in batches until they turn brown. It doesn't take very long. I know. I did say that I don't want to deep fry anymore. But it was a necessary evil.

And so worth the effort. Just looking at the golden brown nuggets draining on paper towels made me happy. I tested one while it was still warm. Wow. So crispy. So tender. So juicy. Is this really chicken breast that I hate?

These would be great dipped in Ranch Dressing, just like the Chicken Crispers served at Chillis. But I don't have any Ranch Dressing and neither did I know how to make one. So sriracha it was. 

Could I taste the buttermilk? I could detect the smell and it was not a bad thing at all. It sort of reminded me of the sour cream dip at Chillis. 

I did not follow the recipe exactly as I was working with only one chicken breast. I just eye balled the ingredients as I went along. For the full recipe, please go to Toby's blog. And while you are there, I hope that you enjoy his wit and style.