Speed-Brined Chicken Nuggets with Honey Dip
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Recipe courtesy of Justin Warner

Speed-Brined Chicken Nuggets with Honey Dip

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  • Level: Advanced
  • Total: 55 min (includes chilling time)
  • Active: 35 min
  • Yield: 8 servings
I took my senior prom date to a chicken spot and ordered a catering-size portion of their nuggets with honey dipping sauce. This is as close to replicating that as I can. And speaking of "can," if you use a nitro canister, you can achieve peak marination in 20 minutes.

Ingredients

Chicken:

Dipping Sauce:

Dredge:

Directions

Special equipment:
a cream whipper; two cartridges nitrous oxide; a deep-fryer
  1. For the chicken: Butterfly the breasts and cut into bite-sized pieces.
  2. In a liquid measuring cup, whisk together the pickle brine, confectioners' sugar and salt. Load the chicken and brine into a cream whipper and charge with two cartridges of nitrous oxide. Place in the fridge to chill for at least 20 minutes or up to 1 hour.
  3. For the dipping sauce: Meanwhile, whisk together the brine, honey and salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.
  4. Set a deep-fryer or Dutch oven to heat the oil to 375 degrees F.
  5. For the dredge: Combine the flour, granulated sugar, salt, paprika, garlic powder and pepper in a bowl. Whisk in the pickle brine until it's the texture of semi-wet sand.
  6. Drain the brine by discharging the canister. Open it up and unload the chicken into a colander. Shake the excess brine off the nuggets and dredge in the flour mixture until uniformly coated.
  7. Fry the nuggets in batches until cooked through, 2 to 4 minutes. Drain on a paper towel-lined plate. Serve with the sauce.