Comment by CharlieDigital 2 days ago
> That doesn’t mean they are superior to actual whole chicken.
My kids prefer nuggets over the whole roast chicken my wife and I eat. The salt, MSG, and seasoning of the nuggets along with the fat from the oil tastes better to them. Sadly, nothing I say will convince them otherwise.
Chicken tenders are chicken tenders, not nuggets.
And there's absolutely nothing wrong with nuggets. Nobody criticizes Italian meatballs, which are ground-up beef in balls. But then for some reason ground-up chicken in a different shape isn't "real chicken"?!
You’ll find the “ground chicken” in a typical industrially produced chicken nugget to be quite different than the ground meat found in a traditional Italian meatball.
correct, the "ground chicken" is much less wasteful and a more cost effective way to feed the masses with a reduced environmental impact
McNuggets are 45% meat (specifically: Chicken Breast Meat) -- at least they are in the UK, where they have to give out this information. Presumably the US recipe is at least similar.
https://www.mcdonalds.com/gb/en-gb/product/chicken-mcnuggets...
I'm sure there are many traditional Italian meatball recipes, but as one example, I had an AI convert the US measurements from Chef John's recipe, and it estimated 900g meat and 494g other ingredients, so 65% meat.
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/220854/chef-johns-italian-...
Of course the ingredients differ in a lot of other ways than just the percentage of meat. That's just what I looked at.
Will you find it to be different?
Honestly, ground meat is ground meat. What makes you think ground chicken is "quite different"? Why are you putting it in scare quotes? The chicken breasts used to make McNuggets are literally no different from the standard chicken breasts sold at your average grocery store.
And in both cases the ground meat/chicken is mixed with binders and flavorings to keep it together and keep it moist and make it even tastier -- variously including flour, breadcrumbs, water, salt, spices, etc. depending on the recipe.
Obviously nuggets are battered and fried. But then so are traditional Italian delicacies like arancini.
I do make fried chicken for them occasionally and I season with a bit of curry, cumin, and smoked paprika.
- 1 pack of 6 thighs or 3 breasts
- 4 tbs corn starch + 1 tsp salt + 1/2 tsp each of curry powder, cumin, smoked paprika to coat
- slice chicken thinly and use a mallet to flatten to make it even and cook faster (this also increases the ratio of breading to chicken which they like)
- coat each slice in the corn starch mix
- beat 2 eggs and then dredge the coated slices in egg
- coat the now egg coated chicken with bread crumbs of your choice
- fry in a flat pan with just about 4-6mm of oil
- about 60-90 seconds each side
Going through the school system (private pre-K/K and public) was really what changed my kids' eating habits. Once they get used to the school nuggets and pizza, it's hard to "unlearn". They were more diverse eaters as young kids and ended more picky and narrow in their food choices. It's why pizza is the staple of every kids' birthday party.
I believe this is a difficult problem for schools. They need to have food that meets the standards (as they are defined), appealing enough to 6 through {age} range to have them eat it, something that can be prepared with relatively low skill demands, and something that can be prepared easily in the quantities needed with the kitchen staff provided.
That really gets down to reheated chicken nuggets, pizza, and other classic school lunches.
The alternative would be to have a school that has a sufficiently large and trained kitchen staff to prepare diverse food, make sure that the food selection that they have meets the requirements (and that the kids aren't just eating the deserts).
I'm recalling back to my school food eating days and the kitchen had four people - two serving, one cooking, one cleaning.
High school had two or three in the cafeteria - and they were constantly putting out the fast food equivalent food items. I can't even remember if there were salads (if there were, I don't think I ever ate them). [Burger, deep fried [fish, shrimp, chicken], French fries] was my lunches for four years.
Though I'm also not entirely sure that schools are to blame for the narrowing of food preference with kids. They don't help, but I'm not entirely sure they are to blame.
Try making nuggets from scratch. It’s so good and easy to do. Chicken tenders from breast meat. Egg seasoned with salt, pepper. Dunk into seasoned breading. Dunk into egg again and back to the breading. Pan fry. Yummy.