Pringles Coated Chicken Nuggets

First of all, why Pringles chicken and not any potato chips chicken? Because Pringles only have about 42% potato content. The rest is wheat starch and various flours (potato, corn, and rice) mixed with vegetable oils. When made, the pulp of all these ingredients are molded into the stackable chips we’ve all come to know as Pringles. Now, I personally prefer artisan chips, with the skin intact, cooked in high quality vegetable oil. Heck, I’ll make chips myself! But for this recipe, we do want the starch from various flours. It’s what gives my nuggets the distinct crispy texture.

The sweet tomato sauce, and the sour vinegar drenched sautéd broccoli, make a perfect condiment. Of course, you could serve it with rice just for the sake of it, but I think there should be an idea behind every single part of a dish. And in this case, given the crispy potato and starch covered chicken nuggets, there’s no need for more carbon hydrates on the side. The choice is not due to any diet, it’s do to the balance of flavors and textures in a dish.

Make your own mayo, flavor it with a little roasted sesame oil, and serve it on the side. It will be an excellent compliment to the sweet and sour flavors of the crispy Pringles chicken, sweet tomato sauce and vinegar sautéd broccoli.

Let me know what you think!

Time it takes:

• 30 minutes for preparation
• 45 minutes for cooking
• Total time: 1 hour

For the broccoli:

• 1 large head of broccoli
• 4 tbsp of balsamic vinegar
• A lot of butter
• Salt

1. Rip some florets out of the broccoli head.
2. Toss them in a hot pan with a lot of butter to give them some color. Don’t overdo it, you want to keep the crispiness. About a minute per side is enough.
3. Toward the end, add the balsamic vinegar and salt, and them take them off the stove.

For the Pringles chicken nuggets:

• 2 chicken breasts
• 1 or 2 handfuls of Original Pringles (if you are just preparing the nuggets, you can use flavored Pringles, but in this recipe the nuggets are part of a symbiosis of flavors that we don’t want to pollute)
• 2 eggs
• A lot of rapeseed oil

1. Into a bowl, crush the chips in small pieces.
2. Mix the eggs into a second bowl.
3. Cut the chicken breasts into nugget-size pieces.
4. Soak each piece of chicken into the eggs, and then into the Pringles’ crumbs. They should be covered in crumbs.
5. You want rapeseed oil about 1,5 cm deep. So the actual volume depends on the diameter of your pan, but keep pouring, you’ll never have too much oil. Or just use a deep fryer if you happen to have one.
6. Heat up the pan on medium heat, and fry the nuggets about 2 minutes per side until they get a light golden/yellowish color. Set them aside.
7. Just before it’s time to serve, heat the pan of oil up on high heat and put in the almost ready Pringles chicken nuggets. They should get crispy and brown. Be careful, it only takes about a minute per side.

For the sweet tomato sauce:

• 350 g of tomato purée
• 1 onion
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1 smoked chili pepper
• 1 tsp of smoked paprika powder
• 1/2 tsp of fennel seeds
• 2 tbsp of blackstrap molasses
• 2 tbsp of sugar
• Salt to your liking
• Olive oil

1. Mince the onion and the garlic cloves.
2. Chop the pepper. If you like it really spicy, use an habanero. If not, use another one, it’s up to you.
3. Fry onion, garlic and pepper in olive oil.
4. Add the fennel seeds and the paprika. Mix up.
5. Pour the tomato purée in your mix.
6. Add the molasses, sugar and salt.
7. Mix up, cover, and let it simmer on low heat for 45 minutes to let all the beautiful flavors evolve into a rich, sweet, tomato sauce.

For the mayonnaise:

• Homemade mayo, or a really good quality store-bought mayo
• About 1/2 cl of toasted sesame oil per dl of mayo
• 1 pinch of Espelette pepper

1. The recipe of the homemade mayonnaise will be coming up soon !
2. Mix all the ingredients up.