Saturday 12 November 2011

Peanut Drumsticks

A recipe inspired by an amazing cookbook published almost 30 years ago - The Colour Library Book of Creative Cooking.

One Saturday in work, my colleague brought this cookbook into work. As we were not that busy, I went through the entire 470 pages and tagged quite a few recipes that I would like to try.

The Peanut Drumsticks was one of the recipes that I tagged and it was the beautiful photo of these crunchy and delicious looking drumsticks that drew my attention.

As my housemate bought two packs of drumsticks the other day, I decided to try this recipe today.

The recipe (from cookbook):-

Ingredients:
Ingredients
8 Chicken drumsticks, skinned
75g Peanut butter (smooth or crunchy)
1 Egg, beaten
75ml Milk
200g Plain potato chips
50g Plain flour
Salt and ground black pepper
Vegetable oil, for greasing



Flour



First, coat the skinned chicken drumsticks in the flour.




Peanut Mixture
Then coat with peanut mixture.

The peanut mixture is made by mixing peanut butter with the egg and milk then seasoned with salt and black pepper.





Crisps crushed in freezer bag

Finally, coat in the crushed crisps.


PS: Since it was quite impossible to find plain potato crisps in the UK, I went for the lightly salted bag.






Once the drumsticks were evenly coated, line them on the greased baking pan then put into the oven for 45-50 minutes at 190 Degree C until crisp and lightly brown.





Crisp and lightly browned drumsticks

Peanut drumstick

The peanut drumsticks can be served hot with some side dishes or cold with a relish.

I served the drumstick hot on a bed of sweet potatoes mashed with grated cheddar cheese, butter, milk, salt and pepper.  Also with a side of buttered, boiled green peas.

The drumsticks were delicious. Crunchy and crisp outside with a succulent and juicy meat. The slightly salted crisps added saltiness to the slightly (but not sickeningly) sweet peanut coating. The peanut butter was not over-powering, instead gave the drumsticks a smooth texture and added some sweetness and richness to it.

As it was the drumsticks of a chicken, the meat was very juicy. The coatings also protected the drumsticks from drying out in the oven with a rather long cooking time.

This recipe is old fashioned cooking style but still fashionably delicious. It fulfils most criteria of a delicious dish - combinations of few different textures, tastes and look.



As I am writing about drumsticks, another recipe I ate couple of days ago was definitely worth mentioning.

Drumstick - Chinese style, through and through.

This was what happened to the other pack of chicken drumsticks that my housemate bought.

The Chicken Drummet with Rice Ball Onigiri

Chicken Drummet with Rice Ball Onigiri

The chicken drumsticks were steamed to get the inside cooked, dipped in garlic and soya sauce mixture, then shallow fried until lightly browned.

The rice was boiled then mixed with sweet chilli sauce shredded carrots, shredded courgettes and diced red chilli.

Then the rice was wrapped around the chicken drumsticks until they look like rice balls.

The chicken drummets were absolutely delicious with the refreshing carrots and courgettes, sweetness and spiciness coming through, and the rice absorbing all the wonderful flavours.

The drumstick inside the rice ball was amazingly tasty from the garlic and soya sauce marinate.

Different ingredients and flavours that definitely compliment each other very well. A simply delicious dish!

2 comments:

  1. I do think some of these old books are treasures. I have a Colour Library cookbook too, but its on vegetarian cuisine.

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  2. Couldn't agree with you more Shaheen! :)

    It is nice to go back to classic recipes sometimes ;)

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