When Good Foods Go Bad – Part 2

Catherine — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 18:06:24 +0000

You know how sometimes you plan ahead and think you’ve got all your ducks in a row and all that but things still go south, way south? It was an experience like that for me on a Friday evening a couple of weeks ago. My daughter was having friends over (well, it turned out to be “friends;” it was advertised as just “friend,” but that’s another rant entirely). I was going to make this Thai chicken thing that sounded wonderful – peanut-crusted chicken with dipping sauce – and thought I was going to be so clever by chopping everything up for the breading the night before. Big mistake. Nightmarishly big mistake. The breading somehow transmogrified into – I don’t know – peanut cilantro mud (quite tasty, but not so good for using as breading) and refused to stick to the chicken at all. Undeterred, I grabbed clumps of breading and did my best to smoosh it onto the chicken. Imagine trying to cover chicken in a thin layer of sculpey clay. It adhered in places, leaving others bald and looking really, really hideous. Still, I had to feed five kids, so I slammed it in the oven and hoped for the best. When I had to turn the chicken after fifteen minutes, whatever scant amount of breading had managed to cling to it feebly fell onto the baking sheet. I decided to cut my losses and take them to the food court where they bought Chinese food and snuck it into the movies under the coats. Clever girls!

So I failed at this recipe completely, but I think it’s worth another try. If you’d like to give it a shot, here it is:

Peanut-crusted chicken with dipping sauce

Chicken breading:

2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 inch piece fresh gingerroot, peeled and finely grated
1 lemongrass stalk, outer leaves removed, finely chopped
2 Tbsp chopped, fresh cilantro leaves
scant 1 ⅓ cups salted peanuts
¾ cups flour
2 eggs
4 Tbsp milk

12 chicken drumsticks, skin removed

Dipping sauce:

1 fresh red chili, seeded and finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
½ cup white wine vinegar
2 Tbsp dark brown sugar

Chicken prep:

Preheat the oven to 350˚
Place the garlic, gingerroot, lemongrass, cilantro leaves, peanuts and 2 Tbsp of the flour in a food processor; blend until finely ground; transfer to a shallow dish
In a bowl, beat together the eggs and milk
Spread the remaining flour on a plate
Dip the drumsticks into the flour, then the egg mixture and finally the peanut mixture; arrange them in an oiled roasting pan
Bake for 30 minutes, then turn and cook for another 30 minutes; pour off any excess oil and bake for another 5 minutes or until very crisp

Sauce prep:

Grind the chili and garlic to a paste using a mortar and pestle
Put the vinegar and sugar in a pan; heat gently until the sugar dissolves; bring to a boil and simmer for 2 minutes
Stir in the chili-garlic paste and transfer to a bowl
Drain the drumsticks on paper towels and serve with the sauce.

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Notes:

The amounts of garlic suggested are, of course, ridiculously scanty.
I don’t know what lemongrass looks like or where to find it, so I ignored that bit.
The cooking time and temperature may not be spot-on; the temp is reduced and the time is increased from the original (since the original resulted in chicken which was burnt on the outside and a health hazard on the inside).

Food In The Fort » vinegar

When Good Foods Go Bad – Part 2