Dijon mustard crumbed chicken

I never used to be a big mustard fan. I grew up with mild and hot English mustard like all good English children should, but other than that mustard was just another "sauce". Only in the last few years did I even have Amercian mustard on hot dogs, and even then it was only because Mr Steph likes it.

One day I bought Dijon mustard for a herb crusted lamb recipe I found. It was very delicious (which reminds me I should make it again!), but after I didn't really know what else to use it on. I started experimenting, using it in my potato salad instead of mild English mustard and also on sandwiches, then one day I decided to try it on some crumbed chicken I was making.

It was delicious.

"Mustard chicken", as it is commonly called at our house now, is a regular mid-week meal, especially in summer as you can enjoy it with a big salad or even veggies. Sometimes we are a bit naughty and have it simply with baked chips like in the photo above. No matter how you have it, I can assure you that you will not just make it the once and think 'Meh, I guess that was ok ...' It really is delicious. I made this just over Christmas for my visiting family and they loved it too, so it's not just me and Mr Steph approved!

You can bake the crumbed chicken, but we usually shallow fry them as they go that little bit more crispy. By double crumbing the chicken (which I'll explain later if you are not sure what that means) also gives you more of a crispy, thicker crumb on the chicken.

Dijon mustard crumbed chicken

Serves 4

2 chicken breasts
1/2 cup of Dijon mustard
2 1/2 cups of bread crumbs
1 cup of milk or rice milk* (or 1/2 a cup of milk and 1/2 cup of water)

Firstly measure out your bread crumbs and milk in two separate bowls. Also measure our your mustard and set it aside. Now onto the chicken.

Cut your chicken breasts in half as evenly as you can. Of course you will have the fatter ends that will be thicker but that's ok. You can simply flatten them with a meat mallet quickly, but often I just let them cook a little longer later on. Once halved, cut each piece of chicken into two or three pieces. We usually cut it into three so that you have smaller, crispier pieces. You could even leave them as large pieces of chicken (with the whole half of the breast). It's entirely up to you and what you would like.

Arrange the chicken side by side on your cutting board and spread the Dijon mustard generously over one side of the chicken. Now coat the chicken pieces one by one in the bread crumbs, setting them back on the board once completely covered. As you are crumbing the chicken on the mustard side, gently push the bread crumbs into the mustard so that they stick. One by one dip the chicken carefully into the milk, and then back into the crumbs again. This is double crumbing, which gives your chicken that extra layer of crumbs. Once cooked this will make it extra crispy and give it this nice crunch of a crumb layer.


Traditionally when you double crumb something you would dip it first in the milk (or an egg and milk mixture), then the crumbs, and then you repeat this again. As Mr Steph is slightly allergic to eggs I try to avoid cooking with them if I don't need to. In this recipe I am missing that first dip in the milk as you want to keep as much of the mustard on the chicken as possible. You can use this technique to crumb any sort of meat, such as steak (for crumbed steak or schnitzel), fish or even pork chops. I find that double crumbing it really gives it that proper fully-coated layer that you want.

In a large pan or electric pan add enough vegetable or rice oil (I use rice oil) to give around 1 cm in the bottom of the pan. Heat up your oil until you can wave your hand over the top and it feels warm. Turn down the heat to medium and add the chicken into the oil with tongs so that you don't accidentally get your fingers in the oil (which I have done far too many times!). The reason you want it to be on a medium heat and not too high is you don't want your crumbed coating to burn but the chicken not be cooked properly.

Cook the chicken until you can see around 1/2 cm of the edge of the chicken a different colour to the middle of the chicken, then turn over. I find this is the best judge of when you know it's safe to turn your chicken. This way you are not having to cut open your chicken to check if it's cooked and flipping the chicken a million times in the oil. The less you turn the chicken the more crispy it will be in the end.

Once your chicken is a golden brown on the other side remove the chicken to a plate with paper towel. This will soak up the oil before you put it on the plate - otherwise you'll be serving oily chicken!

Serve with salad and chips, or mashed potato and veggies.

Now you can deep fry or bake this recipe, but I prefer to shallow fry as it still gives you that crispy outside without me having to feel guilty about it sitting in all that oil! If you are baking simply back it in a moderate open for around 25-30 mins or until golden brown. Simply poke the chicken with a small knife or skewer and check that any juice that escapes is clear before serving.

Enjoy!
Steph xo


* Use rice milk to make this recipe dairy free.

Apple and maple syrup cakes

People that know me know that I love desserts - especially desserts with fruit of some kind! I've been playing around with individual desserts lately (individual self-saucing caramel puddings coming soon!). A couple of weeks ago I tried a new recipe: Apple and Maple Syrup cakes.

This was a recipe that I was going to post later in the year, but when I posted the pic on Facebook I had so many of you request the recipe. So I had to move it up in my calendar!

Now for those thinking 'I'm not much of a maple syrup fan!' it's ok - you only use a little bit of maple syrup while it bakes, and then later you can just drizzle as much as you'd like over the top. Mr Steph is the same and isn't a massive fan of maple syrup. One thing to remember with maple syrup is that it is better to spend that little bit more and get a good quality one. I always buy a Canadian maple syrup but you don't have to.

Just like an apple tea cake, where the sugar on the bottom makes a lovely almost caramel crust, the maple syrup cooks the apple and creates a little bit of a sticky "top". You layer your cakes just like an apple tea cake too, placing the apple on the bottom first followed by the syrup and then the batter.

Apple and maple syrup cakes

Makes 6 Texas muffin sized cakes, which is great for one serve per person
Alternatively, it will make approx 8 normal sized muffins.

85g margarine or diary free spread
1/2 cup of sugar
1 egg
1/2 Tbsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp mixed spice
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 cups S.R. flour
1/2 cup of rice milk or milk (I used rice milk)
6 tsp maple syrup
1 large apple (I used Granny Smith, which is a little bit more bitter than a sweet red apple)

The batter is made just like any other cake. You'll need your mix master or electric beaters, or if you don't have either you can simply use a wooden spoon - it just takes a little bit more work, and you might not get your margarine quite as fluffy. I often use a wooden spoon and it's fine.

Before you go any further - turn on your fan forced oven to 170 C or 340 F.

Cream your margarine or spread until fluffy, then add your sugar and beat again for a couple of minutes. Next is your egg and vanilla extract. Add them to your butter and sugar mixture and beat until well combined. We want to alternate adding the flour and milk. Add 1/2 cup of flour at a time to your mixture, beating it into the mixture before adding a little bit of your milk. Continue this until your flour and milk has all been added.

Now that's your batter done; let's get started on making the base of the cakes.

Peel and core your apple, slicing half of it into thin-ish pieces and the other half into small cubes. Add the cubes into your batter, mixing it through so that you won't have one muffin with apple and then none in the others when you start scooping your mixture later.

Next grease your muffin tray or spray it with oil. Put two or three slices of apple on the bottom of each cup, trying to create the one layer without too much overlapping. Drizzle a teaspoon of maple syrup in each cup, followed by scoops of your batter. You want to try not to fill the cups past 3/4 full. I try to aim for a little over half. If you have more mixture, then you can add more. It will just mean that you have bigger muffins.

Once you've constructed your muffins pop them in the oven for 25 - 35 mins until your cakes are cooked through.

Drizzle with a little bit more maple syrup before serving with custard, cream or ice cream - or a bit of them all!

Enjoy!
Steph xo

The tale of Engagement Chicken

A tale of love, marriage ... and roast chicken

Engagement Chicken.
Image from Glamour.com

With Valentine's day just around the corner I thought it would be the perfect time to blog about a story I have been wanting to write for a while now.

I guess I should start by saying, have you heard about the engagement chicken recipe?

Now the first time I heard about this story was around the coffee machine at work. For those that know me well it is no secret that I definitely give Mr Steph a few nudges when it comes to (as Beyonce so elegantly put it) "putting a ring on it". It's to the point now where it's a little bit of a playful joke ... well a playful joke that actually means "Ok, why am I still waiting?!"

A colleague says to me, "Have you heard about engagement chicken?"
I reply with a look of bewilderment.
Now he himself looks a little puzzled. "I don't know ... maybe it's something from Iran -" his home country "- I just remember hearing about this chicken recipe called engagement chicken. Apparently if you make this dish your man proposes to you soon after ... maybe you soon try this on Mr Steph!"

I laughed along with him, but I was also very curious about a dish that could have some sort of pulling power of this magnitude. We left the kitchen and walked back to our desks, with him vowing to find out about it for me.

A few months later I had forgotten about it, had moved jobs and was settling into a new position. Suddenly my ex-colleague sends me a link out of the blue with a simple note: "Here's that engagement chicken recipe!" It was a link to a wikipedia article about the origins of the Engagement chicken recipe - and I must say it has a very interesting story!

26 years ago Kim Bonnell, at the time the fashion editor of Glamour Magazine, developed a roast chicken recipe after a trip to Italy. She passed the simple lemon and herb roast chicken recipe to her assistant who soon after made it for her then boyfriend. A month later the assistant was engaged!

The recipe soon made its way round the office, with another three women getting engaged soon after they made the dish. In 2003 the recipe was dubbed "Engagement Chicken" and published in Glamour Magazine. Letters from readers soon followed with stories of how they were now engaged after the making the recipe as well.

Have I got you curious yet?

The recipe does sound quite delicious, but there are many other recipes that are equally as good I'm sure. So what makes this one different? According to the then-boyfriend of Kim's assistant it was a meal a wife would make and "It got me thinking."

So for all of you out there who are like me and just hoping that it happens sooner rather than later, how about you throw your fate in the hands of Engagement Chicken?

As it's not one of my own recipes I won't be posting it here on my blog. So here is the link to the original recipe: Engagement Chicken

I will eventually make this myself ... I may just have to wait a while as Mr Steph is a reader of my blog, and knowing him if I made it - even if it did make him want to propose - he'd wait longer just to torment me. He's bit of a stirrer, and I think he's waiting until I don't expect it. Hopefully in a couple of months he's forgotten about it and I can make it - letting the magic of "Engagement Chicken" do it's work.

Steph xo