Fake Out The Take Out: Chicken Nuggets

I decided to try my own take out fake out meal of the nuggets that are fil-ay's of chicken (see what I did there?)  Well, after my quest for the perfect Polynesian sauce, I made one that was close (except brown) but very thin and will try again when I buy some cornstarch.  I found two blogs via Pinterest that made these nuggets and took what I felt were the best ingredients from each, but giving credit where credit is most definitely due here is the link to blog one (which also includes a recipe for their sauce, which I didn't attempt since I am not a fan of honey/mustard sauces) and blog two.

 
 I used three large chicken breasts, which I cubed into pieces.  Looking back, the pieces should have been smaller so they'd be bite sized...if you use more chicken, feel free to adjust your measurements accordingly to make sure your chicken is covered.

First, ingredients for what I will be referring to as the milk mixture:

• 1 egg
• 1 cup of milk
• Pickle juice (looking back, next time I will probably just combine all of these and marinate them all together rather than doing the pickle juice first,then the milk mixture later).

 Second, here are the ingredients for what I will be referring to as the flour mixture:

• 1 1/2 cups of flour
• 2 TBSP powdered sugar (very important ingredient, do not substitute!!!)
• 2 tsp salt (since I added salt and pepper to the pickle brine I changed to 2 tsp instead of 4)
• 1 tsp pepper
• 1 tsp paprika 

Also, you'll need cooking oil.  Peanut oil is what is suggested, but I used vegetable oil, because I wasn't going to the store one more stinking time.  Ha ha.

After reading over 200 comments on both blogs, I decided that I was going to take the chance and marinate them for an hour in pickle juice.  Neither blog called for this, but it was a rampant suggestion in the comments.  Some people swore by it, and some people said that it was an urban legend.  Some said it was true once, but now they use buttermilk.  Whatever, I'm a rebel.  After cubing the chicken, I soaked them in a pickle juice, and some salt and pepper for an hour.  There's really no measurement, just use as much pickle juice (with water mixed if needed) to cover your chicken.  I had a regular jar of hamburger dills in my fridge, and they covered three breasts just fine).

Meanwhile, I ate some lonely dry pickles.  I had some unexpected guests, who unknowingly signed up as guinea pigs.  Yay for girl time!

Then, since one of the blogs called for marinating for two to four hours in a milk mixture, I decided to do that too since I had the time (I started the first marinade for lunch, but just decided I'd serve it for dinner instead).  Again, next time I will combine the pickle juice step and just marinade them all at once together for 2-4 hours.

 For this time, there was a little bit of pickle juice left in the bowl, I just left it in when I added the milk mixture.

 When they were finished marinating, I coated them with the flour mixture.

I read in some comments that some people had bad luck with the flour mixture falling off, so one of the authors suggested refrigerating for a few minutes.  So, after coating them with flour, I put them in the refrigerator for five minutes or so, while the oil heated up.

And voila!  That's literally all I did!  The first batch I took out when they were pretty light, because one of the blogs said take them out earlier than you'd think, but they were a little...chewy.  Not gross, still edible and dead on, but I left the second batch in longer and they turned out perfectly!

What...no paper towels or napkins?  Welp, I always have coffee filters, which is what I used to catch the grease.  I'm basically a kitchen ninja.

I hope you enjoyed, and have learned from my trial.  I'd love to hear if you found any other shortcuts, or ways to enhance them...and especially if you crack the code of the fantastical polynesian sauce!