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Place of origin | United States |
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Created by | Robert C. Baker |
Invented | 1950s |
Serving temperature | Hot |
Main ingredients | Chicken meat or plant-based ingredients |
Ingredients generally used | Breadcrumbs or batter |
Similar dishes | |
A chicken nugget is a food product consisting of a small piece of deboned chicken meat that is breaded or battered, then deep-fried or baked. Developed in the 1950s by finding a way to make a coating adhere, chicken nuggets have become a very popular fast food restaurant item, and are widely sold frozen for home use. [1]
The chicken nugget was developed in the 1950s by Robert C. Baker, a food science professor at Cornell University, and published as unpatented academic work. [2] Bite-sized pieces of chicken, coated in batter and then deep fried, were called "Chicken Crispies" by Baker and his associates. Two problems the meat industry was facing at the time were being able to clump ground meat without a skin and producing a batter coating that could be both deep fried and frozen without becoming detached. Baker's innovations solved these problems and made it possible to form chicken nuggets in any shape by first coating the meat in vinegar, salt, grains, and milk powder to make it hold together and then using an egg- and grain-based batter that could be fried as well as frozen. [3]
Dinosaur-shaped (or simply dino) chicken nuggets were first trademarked by Perdue Farms in 1991, and its rise in popularity was possibly assisted by the success of the Jurassic Park franchise. [4] [5]
Chicken nuggets are generally regarded as a fatty, unhealthy food. [6] [7] A study published in the American Journal of Medicine analyzed the composition of chicken nuggets from two American fast food chains. It found that less than half of the material was skeletal muscle, with fat occurring in an equal or greater proportion. Other components included epithelial tissue, bone, nervous tissue and connective tissue. The authors concluded that "Chicken nuggets are mostly fat, and their name is a misnomer." [8]
The processing required for making chicken nuggets begins with deboning. The chicken is cut and shaped to the correct size. This is done either manually, or by a series of automatic blades, or by a process called grinding (a method of deboning in which the softer parts of the chicken carcass are forced through a mesh, leaving behind the more solid pieces, resulting in a meat paste. If used, this paste is then shaped before battering). The pieces are battered and breaded in a large cylindrical drum that rotates, evenly coating all of the pieces in the desired spices and breading. The pieces are then fried in oil until the batter has set and the outside reaches the desired color. Finally, the nuggets are packaged, frozen and stored for shipping. [9] [10] While specific ingredients and production methods may vary between manufacturers, the above practices hold true for most of the industry.
Chicken nuggets have been the subject of food challenges, social media phenomena, and many more forms of public notoriety. The dish has inspired gourmet restaurants, [11] exercise routines, [12] and even feature-length productions, including Cooties , a movie about a grade school child who eats a chicken nugget infected with a virus that turns prepubescent children into zombies. Thomas Welborn holds the world record for eating the most chicken nuggets in three minutes (746 grams, or approximately 42 chicken nuggets). [1]
On Twitter, the most retweeted tweet of 2017 was made by Carter Wilkerson who asked Wendy's what it would take for them to offer him a year of free nuggets. The tweet generated over 3.5 million retweets. [13] [14]
The largest recorded chicken nugget weighed 51.1 pounds (23.2 kg) and was 3.25 feet (0.99 m) long and 2 feet (0.61 m) wide and was created by Empire Kosher. It was unveiled at Kosherfest in Secaucus, New Jersey on October 29, 2013. [15]
Vegan "chicken" nuggets are made with plant-based ingredients entered the market in recent years. They are sold by major retailers as vegan chicken nuggets and made from ingredients that include pea protein, soy protein, textured vegetable protein, and wheat gluten. [16] [17] Companies such as Beyond Meat, Impossible Foods, Morningstar Farms, and Simulate sell vegan chicken nuggets. In 2019, McDonald's trialed vegan McNuggets made of chickpeas and potatoes in Norway. [18] Swedish fast food restaurant Max Hamburgare offers a dish containing nuggets made of falafel. Quorn also supplies vegetarian chicken-like nuggets derived from fungus. [19] [20] In 2022, KFC began serving vegan chicken nuggets at its 4,000 U.S. locations. [21]
In 2022, Michele Simon wrote in Forbes that there were more than 20 brands selling vegan chicken nuggets. [22] In 2022, Avery Yale Kamila said in the Portland Press Herald that because young people are the most interested in vegan food, it was not surprising that "vegan foods associated with childhood, such as hot dogs and chicken nuggets, would be the first to partner with youth-oriented TV shows and movies." [23] Vegan "chicken" nuggets have been taste-tested, for example in 2021 by Culture Map Dallas [24] and in 2022 by Bon Appétit . [25]
Vegetarian cuisine is based on food that meets vegetarian standards by not including meat and animal tissue products.
Tempura is a typical Japanese dish that usually consists of seafood and vegetables that have been coated in a thin batter and deep fried. Tempura has its origins dating back to the 16th century, when Portuguese Jesuits brought the Western-style cooking method of coating foods with flour and frying, via Nanban trade.
Quorn is a brand of meat substitute products. Quorn originated in the UK and is sold primarily in Europe, but is available in 11 countries. The brand is owned by parent company Monde Nissin.
Fish fingers or fish sticks are a processed food made using a whitefish, such as cod, hake, haddock, or pollock, which has been battered or breaded. They are commonly available in the frozen food section of supermarkets. They can be baked in an oven, grilled, shallow fried, or deep-fried.
A veggie burger is a hamburger made with a patty that does not contain meat, or the patty of such a hamburger. The patty may be made from ingredients like beans, nuts, grains, seeds, or fungi such as mushrooms or mycoprotein.
Schnitzel is a thin slice of meat. The meat is usually thinned by pounding with a meat tenderizer. Most commonly, the meat is breaded before frying. Breaded schnitzel is popular in many countries and is made using veal, pork, chicken, mutton, beef, or turkey. Schnitzel originated as wiener schnitzel and is very similar to other breaded meat dishes.
Chicken McNuggets are a type of chicken nuggets sold by the international fast food restaurant chain McDonald's. They consist of small pieces of reconstituted boneless chicken meat that have been battered and deep fried. Chicken McNuggets were conceived by Keystone Foods in the late 1970s and introduced in select markets in 1981. The nuggets were made available worldwide by 1983 after correcting a supply issue. The formula was changed in 2016 to remove artificial preservatives and improve the nutritional value.
A fritter is a portion of meat, seafood, fruit, vegetables, or other ingredients which have been battered or breaded, or just a portion of dough without further ingredients, that is deep-fried. Fritters are prepared in both sweet and savory varieties.
A rissole is "a ball or flattened cake of chopped meat, fish, or vegetables mixed with herbs or spices, then coated in breadcrumbs and fried."
Chicken fingers are chicken meat prepared from the pectoralis minor muscles of the animal. These strips of white meat are located on either side of the breastbone, under the breast meat. They may also be made with similarly shaped pieces cut from chicken meat, usually the breast, or sometimes just pulverized chicken flesh.
Cutlet refers to:
Coxinha is a popular food in Brazil consisting of chopped or shredded chicken meat, covered in dough, molded into a shape resembling a teardrop, battered and fried.
A croquette is a deep-fried roll originating in French cuisine, consisting of a thick binder combined with a filling, which is then breaded. It is served as a side dish, a snack, or fast food worldwide.
Fry Group Foods is a manufacturer of vegan meat substitutes founded by South Africans Wally and Debbie Fry in 1991. In March 2020 it joined LIVEKINDLY Collective, the global plant-based food company.
Corn schnitzel is an Israeli fried corn dish and variant of Israeli schnitzel that is especially popular among vegetarians, vegans, Kashrut keepers and children.
The story of how dino chicken nuggets got their start is a bit hazy, but one thing we know for sure is they firmly launched onto the scene around the same time the original 'Jurassic Park' movie hit theaters. Coincidence? Maybe. But then again, probably not.
...Perdue almost definitely invented dinosaur nuggets and Jurassic Park undoubtedly popularized them[.]
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