I have a few recipes like “Southern Fried Chicken” that call for food to be “dredged”.
For those of you who may not know, the idea is to take a bowl and mix some water, eggs and yellow mustard powder and beat it into a “batter”.
Then take some chicken parts (usually with the skin and bones removed) and drop it into this batter and then put some flour and bread crumbs into another bowl and after the chicken is thoroughly dipped in the batter to “drag” it or “dredge” it through the flour and bread crumbs to give it a nice coating (sort of like Shake and Bake) and then either fry it or deep-fry it or just bake it.
Currently, I"m taking some chicken breasts and removing the skin and bones and cutting them into cubes measuring about one inch on each side and then covering a flat pan with tin foil and lubricating the foil with PAM (a spray-on type vegetable oil) and then pouring some olive oil into the pan and letting the chicken cook at a high temp (around 400 degrees) for 15 minutes and then flipping it over and letting it cook for another 15 minutes.
I’ve tried frying it in a pan with oil and it just tastes a lot better after baking it in the oven instead. The high temperature gives it a crispy texture that makes it seem like it was deep-fried or fried in a pan - even though it wasn’t.
But, my problem is with the “dredging”. When I drag the wet chicken parts through the flour and bread crumbs, most all of the coating seems to fall off. I think my technique must be wrong.
Can any of you help me by advising me of a good way to get the chicken coated with the flour and bread crumbs?
I’ve tried “double dipping” - meaning dipping it in the egg batter and then the bread crumbs and then repeating that procedure. But it just seems to make a big mess and it doesn’t seem to add any extra coating to the chicken.
Any suggestions or tips on how to do a better job with this? I sure would appreciate it. I just seem to make a big mess of this every time I try. Although, when I buy some chicken already pre-coated and just warm it up, it comes out great.
I have found that it is just delicious when I buy some already pre-cooked but only once did I have a good result when I did it myself from scratch. Any help for me?
Yeah, I think the dragging is probably the problem, there. Try pressing them gently into the coating, or, since you’re using small pieces, tossing them lightly around in the bowl till they’re coated all over. Another method you could try is to put the flour/breadcrumbs in a plastic bag, then drop the battered chicken pieces in, close the bag, and give a good shake.
If you’re doing pieces, shake 'em in a bag of the dry, instead of dredging. Not only faster and cleaner, but the stuff doesn’t fall off as much because your fingers don’t knock the breading off.
Also, if you’re using skinless pieces or cutlets instead of skin-on pieces, you may need to add a very very thin coating of corn starch before your wet layer. Glues the breading on better. If you want to try that, I suggest two bags - one with a little corn starch, one with the dry stuff. Put 'em in the corn starch bag, seal and shake. Then knock off any excess corn starch you have on your pieces so they’re just ever so lightly coated; if you see any clumps of corn starch, it’s too much. Toss 'em into your egg mixture and then into the bag with your dry mix and shake again. Pull 'em out and put them on your baking sheet and let them rest for a few minutes before they go into the oven. The resting step is important - it allows the starches to absorb the liquid and makes them stick better. If you hit them with heat before the starches hydrate, they fall off.
What I do is put the crumbs on a large dish, put the meat/fish on the crumbs, then flip them (if the pieces are large) or make a molehill of crumbs over the items and pat it (if they’re small).
I dredge in flour first, then shake it off, then dip in egg/water, and then dredge again in crumbs/flour. I have one fried chicken recipe that calls for dredging in powdered milk flakes, but let me get the recipe before you try it. I forget wich stage it goes in.
To me, the trick is to shake everything so you don’t end up with glop. Your egg should be thin, not a “batter,” IMHO.
The corn starch sounds like a marvelous idea and I can’t wait to try it. I do use corn starch but it’s to make a sauce where I take a can of Campbell’s mushroom soup and mix it with a can of fruit juice and bring it to a boil. Then I use the corn starch t thicken the soup to a point where it is so thick that it becomes a yummy, yummy, sauce. Then, I serve my chicken with some brown rice covered with that sauce and the result is just deelicious.
I was thinking maybe thicker batter will make it easier. Adding flour to the batter will certainly make it stickier so the breadcrumbs don’t fall off so easily, but using corn starch should do a similar job.
I usually dip the chicken in the egg batter and then kind of bury it in the flour, flip it over and repeat. Beware, this method is messy and if you are doing it correctly, your fingers become covered in egg and flour; do it near a sink so you can rinse off your hands periodically.
Try flour, then eggs, then panko bread crumbs. And bake instead of fry. Delish. But I still often run the risk of the whole breading part coming right off the bottom when we take it out and serve it. We’re getting there though.
I’d also like a really good “glop” recipe. Those look good when they are done like that on the cooking shows.
Just read this the other day, it has a good explanation.
Dip each piece of chicken into the flour, first one side and then the other, and shake it to remove the excess. Repeat with the eggwash. Last, lay the chicken on the panko and press it gently to get the panko to adhere, then turn it over and repeat. Make sure it is well covered. You might be tempted to skip the flour dip, but don’t — it gives the egg something to stick to. An even egg coating makes an even crust, which will help to ensure juicy chicken.
Since I began using PAM (or any other brand of the same thing), I have never had any probs with the coating coming off when I try to remove the finished item from the baking sheet. It never sticks.
I hope you will might try that and I hope it will solve your problem.
Actually, thicker batters are harder to get to stick to boneless chicken than breading is. It falls off because there’s nothing sticking the proteins of the meat surface to the batter surface but a sheen of water. Water isn’t terribly sticky. That’s where the thin layer of cornstarch or flour comes in - it’s thin enough to stick to the wet meat, but then it pulls out some moisture and acts as a glue layer to stick the batter to the meat. I prefer cornstarch to flour because it is thinner and easier to get a very light coating, but the principle is the same either way - light dusting of starch + liquid from the meat = glue. Liquid from the batter + starch from the dredging = glue. Glue sticks to glue.
That’s why WAITING is key. It’s even more important that what ingredients or what order or technique. After you get your glop on your chicken, no matter how you do that, you must let it sit, 10 minutes minimum, before cooking it. Some cooks go as many as 30. You have to give it time for your glues to develop, or, as Paula Dean says, for “those start-chez to haaagh-drayt”. That will make it stick.
I know I mentioned that already, but it was in an offhand manner and I fear it may have gotten lost in the sea of delicious ideas that followed. It’s the kind of thing people leave out of recipes all the time, because once you know how to do it, you just do it, and forget.
Use the time to clean up your countertop from the dredging mess and take out the trash with the chicken scraps.
WhyNot are you sure that applies to batter with flour in it? Flour and water is pretty sticky, after all.
I don’t really batter/bread things so I will defer to your expertise in this matter, I just wondered if you misunderstood my point about adding flour to the batter itself.
Either way, maybe I should try whatever seems to work for Lazlo. I’m vegetarian so I suppose it won’t be chicken, but I might try it with Quorn (fake chicken) or halloumi (cheese).
