Nut-Free Schnitzel

As a child, one of my most favourite meals was chicken schnitzel. I had it just about every night. I had it so often that mum and dad gave up with the whole flour and egg thing, and skipped just to the breadcrumbing. So then my grandmother's lovingly made, non skimped chicken schnitzel was a million times better.

The other day, I had an epiphany for a paleo remake of schnitzel, and I wanted to see if I could remake it. I made up a big batch of chicken tenderloins and an eggplant round (to test it out) and lovingly made my non-skimped, paleo schnitzel.

Afterwards, I laid my big chickeny breast schnitzel and the lone breaded eggplant on a bed of shredded and boiled TO PERFECTION Brussels sprouts (they looked so good that even my brother asked if he could 'try the lettuce') and ladled on some of my LINK slow and perfect meat tomato sauce. And it was DIVINE. It looked like heaven too. It seems to be the best meals I don't take photos of.

So I tried to recreate it with the eggplant. I got an eggplant, sliced it up, salted it, let it sit out for a day and a half (the longer, the better!) and got around to making a big batch of eggplant schnitzel.

I laid out my bowls of arrowroot, egg and coconut and the dunking commenced.

The still-wet eggplant rounds were dusted in probably too much arrowroot...

Then covered in egg (sometimes it didn't want to stick)...

And they were given a coating of finely desiccated coconut to schnitzel them up.

There's my first one.

Once I'd made all of them, I glugged out some olive oil (honestly, I suggest using a much more stable oil like tallow or coconut oil, because they ended up tasting very PUFA-y) into two frying pans and plonked them in once the oil was hot.

Back to replicating my perfect tomatoy dish that I made last time, I got a ladle and ladled out some of my pumpkin soup and put it in a pot, and then got a ladle of the worst osso buco of my life (osso buco + water = my hopelessly failed attempt at broth, I had no bones available) and popped that in the same pot. Of course, it wouldn't be the same solanine taste (duh, there's no tomatoes in basic pumpkin soup) but I wanted the same sort of rich, thick, vegetable-creamy (you know what I mean?) ladle sauce to spoon over my schnitzel like a parma. I heated it up, tasted it - still tasted boring, but oh well - and poured it lavishly over the breaded eggplant.

The photos accurately depict the meal's tastiness.

Before Sauce:

After Sauce:

As you can see, the eggplant schnitzel was the ultimate STAR OF THE SHOW and the pumpkin-osso buco-bleugh sauce just ruined it.

You know what also ruined it?

The fact that mum ate the rest of them.

Chicken (or Eggplant) Schnitzel

Serves 4

4 chicken breasts (or 2 large eggplants)

2 cups tapioca starch, tapioca flour or arrowroot

3 eggs (you can go with 2 but it's better to have more)

3 - 4 cups finely desiccated coconut

Stable fat, for frying

If using chicken breasts, cut each breast into three or four equally sized sections (about the size of a tenderloin). If using eggplant, cut into rounds, lay on absorbent something and sprinkle with salt. Let the butter juices leach out for at least 30 mins. Pat down with some more, dry absorbent stuff.

Place the tapioca/arrowroot in a bowl, crack the eggs into a separate bowl, and pour the coconut into a third bowl. Whisk the eggs until combined.

Dip the chicken (or eggplant) pieces, one at a time, into the tapioca/arrowroot, covering the piece. Then dip into the egg, covering the piece, and then into the coconut, then place on a separate plate or dish. Continue with the remaining pieces of chicken/eggplant.

Heat up the fat in a deep frypan. Fry each piece in the fat until cooked on one side, then turn and cook on the other side. Take it out once it is golden brown. Repeat with the remaining pieces until all are cooked.

Serve with vegetables, homemade mayo, melted cheese or some delicious sauce (don't ruin it with a bland sauce!)

NB: Once it's cold, the chicken schnitzel goes a little gummy between the chicken and the arrowroot, so I'm yet to work out a substitution - probably coconut flour. In the mean time, just eat it while it's hot! Not that it's incredibly inedible being a little gummy, it just doesn't stick to the chicken as well.

And You Thought It Was Almond Flour

Breakfast was a random toss-in-the-pan that I'm going to make into a recipe.

Hint: it includes eggplant, and NO almond flour, and yet it tastes like breaded eggplant. It's gonna be awesome! Stay updated as I create low carb eggplant rounds that'll knock your socks off!

Good Things Come in Jars

You know that avjar and malizzano I bought a while back? I never got around to finishing them off, so I took them out today. The avjar (red) smells like alcohol, and the malizzano grew some whiteish, slimy mould in some places. How cool is that?! I've made alcohol and a probiotic environment!! :)

Better than Baba Ghanoush

The Middle Easterns have their dips down pat. Just look at tahini. Isn't that a fantastic little spread that's a great creamy addition to a lot of stuff? If I don't put olive oil on something, I'll probably drizzle and dollop some tahini on it. But then there's baba ghanoush, which is fantastic made right (or bought) or bad. Real bad.

Ages ago, I came across another dollopy spready purée thing that hails (or seemed like it would hail) from the Middle Eastern area. It was called avjar (pronounced av-yar), but because the blender and I don't have the best relationship, and I'd just eat it all out of the blender as soon as it was made anyway, I gave it a miss.

Today, I was desperate for food so I strolled into some place called 'deli' and picked up some sliced salami and marinated olives, and as she was slicing up my future taco shells (deli meat is THE best for holding food), I turned around to find red jars of, you guessed it, delectable avjar. Take note that I've never tasted it before today, I already knew it would be a spoon of divine Middle Easternness.

And then I looked around a bit more. And I found another jar called malizzano. There was no way I could leave this shop without both jars. Even with the evil oil (sunflower). Sometimes I think it's better to taste things to know what they taste like, even if it means going against ideals you'd normally not stray from. And the jars are from Macedonia, and it looks like they've been made with love.

I should probably mention what these jars are made of before I tuck in with a spoon. They're very similar; they're both a simple blend of roasted capsicum and roasted eggplant, but obviously the avjar is red capsicum and the malizzano is green. It's quite strange, though, how they taste a lot different to what they're made of. I reckon they'd both taste good mixed with either roasted tomatoes, tahini or maybe paprika or cinnamon or some other spices, or maybe all three. Oh and garlic. It almost tastes like it already has garlic in it. Or some soft white cheese if dairy's your style.

I'm not quite sure what to eat it with, but my options so far are from a spoon, simmer and cook eggs in it like shakshuka, or obviously as a dip with some veggie sticks. I had a google search around and found that it's good for salad dressings, meat marinades and as a lasagna sauce. Can't wait to try it all!

Baba Ghanoush

I can't say I'm impressed. However, I also can't say that I've had baba ghanoush before, so I have nothing to compare this to. I'm still not impressed.

I really wish I put in the effort to use the barbecue to cook the eggplant.
I wish I roasted the garlic.
I wish I had some spices, or at least the knowledge of which spices, to add to this dish.
I wish I added some salt.
I wish I had some salty pita bread in the house.
I wish baba ghanoush could be made with the eggplant still piping hot from the oven/barbecue to keep all the delicious smell in.

So obviously my baba ghanoush lacked a bit of flavour. But I can always add a bit of flavour later, right? Next time I have it (I'm thinking with eggs in the morning), I'll add a ton of flavour to it - I'm thinking salt, olive oil, cayenne - but if I make it again, I'll definitely smokey up the eggplant. Some smoke would make a difference I reckon!

More Recipes Coming Up!

Ok, so I might have been procrastinating and not putting anything up for the last few days... I mean weeks...

It's just that so much has been happening since my birthday. Last week we were going out every night, and we had a few exams on too, and basically I had other things to focus on than writing about the stuff I was focusing on.

I've also progressed a lot more in terms of health in the weeks I haven't been here. I've upped my calories and upped my workouts, and for me, increasing calories is kinda hard so I've had to be a bit inventive. I hope to post a smoothie recipe up soon! Speaking of smoothies, I've gotten myself a protein powder just to help with the weight gain a bit. It's 100% unflavoured raw sprouted rice protein, so if you can imagine that, you can imagine why I can only really have it in smoothies! It's just too... funny-tasting to be used anywhere else. I make sure I have some of it every day, so I'm slowly getting used to it.

These past few days I've been cooking a lot more as well (at the moment I've got an eggplant in the oven) so I've got some more recipes to post! None of them are my own but I've tweaked recipes a bit. I tend to tweak a lot of recipes...