amaranth seed crusted chicken popcorn and lemon zest

Yesterday I separated the chaff from the amaranth seeds which I grew on a small piece of ground in the corner of my girlfriend's dad's property. It could not have been more than 1.5 meters by 1 meter. I managed to get about 50ml of amaranth seeds, more than triple the amount that I started with. There are still some amaranth seeds left on my plants as well.

Nonetheless, I will not have a property big enough for all the seeds, so I thought, why not add them to my food? So, I got the idea to make amaranth seed popcorn chicken.

At first, it went all according to plan, but a lot of the seeds fell off in the process of frying. So this might not have been the best use of these seeds. Taking into account that it took me about three months to grow, it was not the optimal use for these seeds... But so you learn.

In any case, it still came out so nicely, and I want to share with you the cooking process so that you can make some for yourself as well!

So without further ado, please follow along!

Ingredients list/Recipe

For this recipe, I used mostly normal ingredients except the amaranth seeds. Also, I made my own bread crumbs, so it might be easier to buy some! I used the following ingredient amounts:

2 eggs,
3 tbsp of bread flour,
1/2 tsp mustard powder,
1/2 tsp smoked paprika,
1 lemon's zest,
2 tsp of butter,
2 chicken breasts,
2 slices of old bread, and
about 20ml (volume) amaranth seeds.

Process/Method

I started with the breadcrumbs so that they could cool off as I prepared the chicken. I started by cutting the bread into smallish cubes. But as soon as I added them to the pan, I realised I should have made them smaller. So I just took some scissors and cut them into smaller pieces as they fried.

I added the butter to the pan and fried the pieces until they were crunchy and dried out.

As I finished this, I placed the pieces on a plate to cool off completely. As they were cooling off, I started with the chicken.

For the first coating, I cut the chicken into small cubes. I could have made them even smaller, in retrospect.

I then placed them into the flour mixture (which was basically the flour, mustard powder, and smoked paprika.) I coated each piece with flour, and then I placed them in a baking tray.

As I finished this, the breadcrumbs cooled down enough. I added this to the blender along with my amaranth seeds and blended it util it was fine. I also added the remaining flour that I did not use with all of the chicken pieces to the breadcrumb and amaranth mix.

Now I was ready to make the popcorn chicken!

I made myself a small "station" in which I added the dried chicken to the egg mix and then to the bread crumb mix. I made a little bit too few breadcrumbs for all of the chicken. In the future, I will either use a smaller chicken breast or I will make more breadcrumbs.

After a while, I was finished. It was way too much work for a quick lunch, but by now, I am not known for my quick lunches. My girlfriend is used to this by now.

Now I shallow fry them. This is obviously not the healthiest option in the world, but once in a while, it is worth treating yourself! I add a bit of oil to the pan, and I shallow fry them. I turn them over, and depending on how quickly they brown, I turn them over again.

As I said at the start of the post, some of the amaranth seeds fell off during frying. Some of them also popped, as this is what I wanted! However, it was not the most successful experiment concerning this aspect.

These seeds could have been used in a better way! But so we learn. Nothing is perfect, it is the way we get up afterwards! In the future, I would rather pop them and add them to chocolate or something similar.

After frying them, I placed them on some kitchen or paper towels to soak up the excess oil. I also added some final salt at this stage.

And there you have it! It is not the quickest recipe, but it is surely very delicious. I added some lemon zest, and a little bit of lemon juice. I ate it with some sweet chilli sauce as well. Which was just perfect!

I would not make this regularly, and I will not make it with the amaranth seeds again unless I have lots of them. But they add some extra protein, which again I could have used in a better way! But it was a fun and delicious experiment.