Nicola Keegan

Found a recipe for Chicken Jalfrezi the other day which was really good, and also fairly quick and easy to make!

I promised to email Michelle the recipe, but forgot, so will post it here instead!!

Serves 2-3

Ingredients: 2 chicken breasts, 1 tsp cumin seeds, 1 onion sliced, 2 chopped bell peppers, 2 crushed garlic cloves, 1 tsp chopped ginger, curry paste (didnt know what exactly they meant, so I made a paste from 2tsp tikka spices, 1 tsp curry powder, 1/2 tsp garam masala and a few drops of olive oil – I’d say you can use something similar!), 1 tsp chopped chilli, 1 tsp ground coriander, 1 tsp ground cumin, 1/2 tsp salt, 1 can chopped tomatos, chopped coriander leaves.

Method: Cube the chicken.  Heat some oil and fry the cumin seeds until they splutter.  Add onions, peppers, garlic and ginger – fry for 6-8 minutes.  Add the “paste” and fry.  Stir in the chilli, coriander, cumin, salt and a few tablespoons of water to stop it sticking.  Fry for 2 mins more.  Add the chicken and fry for approx 5 mins.  Add the chopped tomatos and coriander leaves.  Cover and cook for 15 mins.

I was having  look at my stats for my website, and after the search “Nicola Keegan” can you guess which search terms have directed the most traffic to my site?? Photography? Ireland?

No, you are all wrong! The answer is .. “homemade chicken goujons”!! So I can deduce that a whole lot of people want to know how to make chicken goujons at home!!

So.. the original post is here.  But I wanted to add one or two things now that I have made it loads of times! I have tried a few different variations that taste really good too.

Sometimes I crush some garlic into the butter while I melt it. This is especially tasty if you add some grated Parmesan cheese to the breadcrumbs!

I nearly always add a little bit of grated cheddar, and some chili flakes to the breadcrumb mix for a delicious cheesy flavour.

One time when I was making this recipe, I didn’t have any breadcrumbs, or suitable bread for making any, so I crushed some old “Tuc”/”Ritz” type biscuits, and that was very tasty too!

So happy goujon making!!

Usually if I do chicken in breadcrumbs (or similar), I dip the chicken or chicken pieces into egg, then flour and/or breadcrumbs and fry it.

I came accross this recipe the other week and tried it last night. It was really, really good!! Dipping the chicken in melted butter instead of egg made a big difference! I didnt have any cornflakes, so I whizzed up some toast in the mixer to make breadcrumbs, and it was very tasty – cooking it in the oven makes it a healthier option too. Something I will definitely try again!

The suggestion is also made to prepare the chicken strips ahead of time, and then to freeze them so they just need to be cooked. Good timesaving idea.