recipes

Let’s Cook Fried Chicken Balls – Cooking with CoCo

Hi Aspirers! I hope you are enjoying my weekly content thus far. I’m trying my best to keep up with my schedule by uploading a new post every Tuesday you all. I wanted to share with you all a new recipe I tried. Not too long ago, one of my friends who happens to also be a chef ManifestKitchen participated in an IG live by showing us how to prepare one of her favorite home dishes. I couldn’t just watch the IG live, I wanted to participate. I went to the grocery store and bought the ingredients I needed to follow along but with a little twist.

She was planning on showing us how to make Sierra Leone Fish balls but some of the ingredients didn’t work for me. What did I decide to do? Change up the ingredients just a little. What’s great about cooking is that you can experiment with different flavors and try different alternatives to fit your needs. In the end, you’ll see the actual recipe if you would like to try the recipe instead of my alternatives.

Here are the ingredients I used:

Bread crumbs, oil, almond milk, coconut flour, salt, ground pepper, chili powder, parsley, garlic powder, sliced onions, ground chicken, two eggs, potatoes, and steamed cauliflower (not shown because I decided to add later.) As you’ve seen in my previous recipe posts I don’t measure. I measure base on what I believe will be a good amount.

The first thing you need to do is pour your bread crumbs onto a plate and mix in your seasonings. Next create an egg batter with both your eggs, a few splashes of milk and add the seasonings into your egg batter and mix. Lastly, pour your flour onto a plate and mix in your seasonings. If you don’t like some of these seasonings feel free to switch them out. I’m not a huge salt person so I didn’t use as much salt compared to the other seasonings I’ve added.

Let’s start cooking your ground chicken. As a meat alternative, you could use ground beef, turkey, or fish if you don’t want to use chicken. As your chicken is cooking add in your seasoning. While you are cooking your chicken peel, and dice your potatoes and start boiling them in a pot of water until tender. Unfortunately, I don’t have images for that step. Sorry!

Once your chicken is done cooking drain and set aside to cool for a few minutes. Finish boiling your potatoes and once the potatoes are cooked drain, and run the potatoes over cold water to speed up the cooling process.

After your chicken and potatoes have cooled down, some add it into a mixing bowl. Add in your potatoes, onions, cauliflower, seasoning, onions (sauté before or throw in raw). To decide how much cauliflower I used one potato to one cup of steamed cauliflower into my bowl.

After everything is added into the bowl, now it’s time to mash your mixture together. You want it to look like the picture on the right. Once it’s completely mashed together you’re ready to start rolling.

Now it’s time to turn your oil on low, so when you are finally ready to start frying it won’t take too long to heat up completely.

As your oil starts to slowly heat up, roll your mixture up into balls. Roll them smaller than how I did it. You’ll thank me later. As you roll the balls, also squeeze them to make sure they are firm and they will hold. If not, they will fall apart while frying. I know by experience because it happened to me. I started with 21 balls and ended up with only 10 left. Try not to make the same mistake as I did.

Now that you have rolled your chicken balls now it’s time to coat them. First, dip your ball in the flour, then egg, and lastly bread crumbs. Once you are ready to deep fry turn up your pot of oil to medium-high.

Check your oil to see if it’s hot. If so, you can start frying. Grab a pair of tongs and start slowing adding in a few balls at a time. Don’t overfill the pot. You’ll know when they are done once they are golden brown.

There you have it deep fry chicken balls. For a dipping sauce try chipotle ranch. I highly recommend it. Like I mentioned before, I wanted flavor in every layer. By using coconut flour instead of regular flour it helps make this much lighter.

I hope you enjoyed my healthy rendition of my friend’s recipe. Check out her original recipe down below. Let me or ManifestKitchen know how your food turns out.

Talk soon, Courtney Renee

Egg + MLT (Mushroom, Lettuce, & Tomato) Sandwich – Cooking with CoCo

Hi Aspirers!

Before going into this post I wanted to take some time and mention I hope you all aren’t taking this content as a distraction from BLM and social inequalities. It’s okay to add in your daily routines and still stand up for the cause. If you haven’t donated and is looking to donate or get more information here are some options:

NAACP

Reclaim The Block

Color of Change

Aspirers I’ve recently started making sandwiches again. I’ve been trying to stay away from foods with high carbohydrates. One day while in Walmart I came across thinned slice organic bread and I fell in love because it was 14g compared to the 23g that I’m used to eating.

Anyway, I wanted a sandwich that was filling but also not to heavy so I decided to make a MLT. I’ve never had one or heard of it before. Let me tell you if I could only eat one sandwich for the rest of my life this would be it. I’m not exaggerating! This sandwich is that good. If you’re looking for a great vegan option a regular MLT without a fried egg on top will be just as delicious. It’s great for brunch or lunch.

Let’s get into how I made this sandwich.

First you need your fresh vegetables which are shiitake mushrooms, slices of tomatoes, and green leaf lettuce. Also need garlic powder, black pepper, onion powder, your bread of choice, hickory flavor liquid smoke, egg, mayo, and horseradish sauce. Cheese is optional.

To make this sandwich completely vegan purchase vegan cheese, mayo, and horseradish sauce. For your egg there’s an egg substitute brand called Just Egg which you can make a scramble in place of a fried egg.

Next you want to start sautéing your mushroom in the oil of your choice and season with garlic powder, black pepper, and onion powder. You can add as much or as little season that you like. If you like flavor then you’ll want more than a dash. You will have to add additional oil to prevent the seasoning from burning in the pan.

Once the mushrooms are brown push them to the side of the pan to continue cooking on low heat and put a splash of liquid smoke on the mushrooms. As those cook place your bread in the pan to toast.

Once the bread is toasted on the non-toasted side add your mayo with a dash of black pepper and onion powder to your bread.

Now it’s time to fry your egg. I like my egg over medium but you can fry it sunny side up, over hard or whatever you like. If you don’t like eggs you can skip this step too. No need to add any additional seasoning to your egg because there’s still season in the pan from your mushrooms. Also toss your mushrooms to make sure they aren’t burning in the pan.

While your egg is cooking it’s time to add your other vegetables to your sandwich. Lay the lettuce and tomatoes onto both sides of your bread. Then add your horseradish just to one side. If you don’t like horseradish that’s fine you can leave it off and just add more mayo in place. The sauce in the middle will help keep your sandwich toppings in place better. Think of it as the glue for the sandwich.

It’s fine to add your mushrooms. Doesn’t that look delicious? If you want you can eat the sandwich as is and it’s really good but if not let’s add more toppings.

Add cheese on top of your mushrooms. Again you can stop right here and you’ll be happy but if you want a loaded sandwich let’s keep it going.

Let’s add the egg next! Doesn’t this look good!! We’re not done yet because you’re continuing to load this sandwich we’re going to add one more thing.

We’re going to sprinkle a little more cheese! Omg this sandwich is going to be so good!!

Now close that sandwich and cut in half. I cut mind into two triangles but you don’t have to do it like me.

Do you see this SANDWICH! Just look at it. Do you see the layers of flavors? I want to make myself another one because it’s so good. If you want to finish off this meal add a side item. I made a parfait since this is brunch for me but you can do whatever.

I hope you enjoyed this recipe give it a try. Let me know in the comments if you tried it and how did you like it. Don’t forget to like and share. To be the first to know about a new post follow my blog.

Talk soon, Courtney Renee