Kitchen Vignettes

Crunchy Chicken Nuggets Still on the Menu

My cousins, Leslie and Neil are coming for a sleepover this weekend. We get together at one or the others’ houses a few times a year, beginning with New Year’s Eve. It’s our turn.

I have known Leslie all my life. She is a year younger than I am and our mothers were sisters. Close sisters who saw each other all the time, so so did Leslie and I.

It’s the best of things. We are like sisters but we don’t have the sibling rivalry thing and didn’t share the relationships, with all that means, regarding parents.

Leslie is the one woman on earth I can say anything to and confess anything and she will still love me. If you can ever have a person like that in your life, I say, you are very lucky.

We always have an apple pie when they come, because Leslie and I both love that and the two of us nibble at it all weekend and polish off almost an entire pie between us.

Over the years our menu has changed, depending on the season of course, but the weekends always had plentiful amounts of wine and food.

We have sloooooowed down over the years. Last time we got together we only had one bottle of wine for the entire 2 days. We also don’t eat as much. We’re down to breakfast and dinner plus a few snacks in between.

As for the snacks, if I had kept menus of these weekends I probably could have made a culinary timeline and seen how much the ingredients and style has changed. In the old days it would be stuffed mushrooms and now it would be more like beet chips with crumbled goat cheese and toasted almond sprinkles.

But the ONE hors d’oeuvre that never changes is the chicken nuggets. Can’t get enough of these. I usually have a supply in my freezer. You don’t even have to thaw them, just place them in a single layer in a preheated 425 degree oven and bake them, turning them over once or twice for 8-10 minutes or until they’re hot.

Chicken Nuggets

2 whole boneless and skinless chicken breasts

1 large egg white

3 tablespoons cornstarch

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon Chinese cooking sherry (or use white wine or sherry)

1-1/2 cups ground almonds (or use bread crumbs)

vegetable oil for frying

Cut the chicken into bite size pieces and put them in a large bowl. Add the egg white, cornstarch, salt and sherry and mix until the chicken pieces are uniformly coated with the mixture. Dredge the chicken pieces in the almonds, pressing to coat the entire piece. Set aside, preferably on a cake rack, for 20-30 minutes to air dry slightly. Heat 1/4-inch vegetable oil in a large saute pan over medium heat. When the oil is hot enough to make an almond crumb sizzle, fry the chicken pieces a few at a time for 2-3 minutes per side or until golden brown. Drain on paper towels. Do not crowd the pan when frying the chicken. Makes about 36 pieces. Serve hot.

These may be reheated in a hot oven (425 degrees) for 2-3 minutes per side (more if the nuggets have been frozen or refrigerated and cold).

We’re snowed in and that’s fine with me because I love a quiet day at home. I can read and also catch up on Rubicon, which I realize has been over for quite some time now but not in my house. We’re only through episode #5.

Mostly I am going to cook because my cousins are coming for the New Year’s weekend. I need lots of food and wine. But, to tell the truth, less food and wine than last year and that was less than the year before and certainly much less than, say 15 years ago.

You eat and drink less as you get older. At least that’s what we are finding out.

Our new year’s weekend get together started years and years ago, when we were young and had little kids and we had learned about the usually awful service at restaurants on New Year’s Eve and we were too tired to party at some friend’s house into the wee small hours and besides a babysitter would have cost double that night. So we decided on sleepovers.

After a few years my brother and sister-in-law, once skiers, decided that dinner at my house with the cousins was less of a schlep, so the tradition grew to include their family. We’d feed the kids and send them down to the basement playroom or to bed and we’d have dinner late, they way you can when you’re young.

I used to have a different menu every New Year’s Eve and over the years there were wonderful dinners, but also some disasters. Like the Beef Stroganoff, grayish and awful looking, so many years ago that no one teases about it anymore because it’s such an old thing.

After years and years we finally settled on a couple of entrees we’d stick to: rib roast or rack of lamb. And even that passed. Now we always have rib roast with Rosemary Sauteed Potatoes and some vegetable or other. Desserts are Apple Pie (recipe on my website www.ronniefein.com) and some kind of (usually plum) cobbler that I made in October or November when the fruit was available, and stored away in the freezer.

And because we’re older now and we can’t eat (or drink) the same quantities that we used to and find it stressful to fill up at one meal, we begin our celebration at mid day with hors d’oeuvre. Those change every year, although I always make Chicken-Almond Nuggets because they are irresistible. They’re also easy to make and I can freeze them ahead.

I’ll make some today in fact. It’s a good day for it. And in case you’re snowbound or just feel like cooking something really wonderful, here’s the recipe.

Almond Chicken Nuggets