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.
More in this series
Friday Fakeaway: Recreate Nando’s peri peri chicken and chips at home
Friday Fakeaway: make a takeaway at home with this Chinese chicken curry recipe