Chicken nuggets and Kumara chips

One of my childhood favourites was chicken nuggets and chips. As an adult, a Nutritionist and Naturopath, it is pretty disgusting to understand what is actually in them. And that makes me sad. Sometimes you just need those childhood memories to make you feel all warm and fuzzy again.

According to Food Matters (2011), McDonalds chicken nuggets are made with the following ingredients;

Autolysed yeast extract (compound similar to MSG)
Sodium phosphates
Sodium aluminum phosphate
hydrogenated soybean oil with TBHQ (TBHQ is a petroleum derivitive used for resins, purfumes and varnishes)
Citric acid added to preserve freshness
Dimethylpolysiloxane (antifoaming agent - a silcon which is used in sealants, breast implant fillers and some cosmetic products)

YUM! Not...

I did some of my own investigating, I wanted to see what was in the standard chicken nuggets at the supermarket. I looked at Ingams and Tegal.

Both packets had a lengthy list of ingredients. I was a bit surprised to see that Tegal chicken nuggets only had 35% chicken. The next ingredient being water. Ingams chicken nuggets have 53% and again, next ingredient being water.

Apart from the spices, wheat, salt, sugar, milk solids the rest of the packets appeared to be a list of numbers;

Ingam Tegal

500 - Sodium bicarbonate 330 - Citric acid

541 - Sodium aluminium phosphate 412 - Guar gum

433 - Polysorbate 80 415 - Xanthan gum

321 - Butylated hydroxytoluene 451 - Potassium tripolyphosphate

320 - Butylated hydroxyanisole 452 - Potassium polymetaphosphate

310 - Propyl gallate 450 - Potassium pyrophosphate

551 - Silicon dioxide

627 - Disodium 5’-guanylate

407 - Carrageenan

I'm not sure about you, but I don't have these ingredients in my pantry.

So I'm sorry it's not all good news, but here's a recipe which is 100% chicken. No nasty numbers and very yummy. Also, for kumara chips which are a great side and lower glycemic index (GI) than potato.

You need:

For the chicken

1 x chicken breast (cut in to nugget sizes)

Cajun seasoning

Almond meal

1 x egg white

For the kumara chips

1 x large kumara (grated and cut in the chip size)

1 tsp. garlic powder

1 tsp. parsley

1 tsp. celery salt

1 tsp. chicken salt