Baby Bites Party Food: Spiced Chicken Goujons

This weekend we had 18 of our immediate family over in celebration of our daughter, Bridget reaching her first birthday - a little tea party, in honour of this first milestone. I did a range of different party foods to have universal appeal with both the adult majority as well as the three children.

Chicken goujons seem to be a mainstay as a party finger food and I made my own to avoid any nasty additives being used and so we knew the chicken was of the best quality and organic to boot. I used a spice combination that worked well, but if for smaller babies you may want to reduce the quantities to tone it down a little, but luckily Bridget and her cousin Pearl who is four months older, both love lots of spicier flavours so these went down well with both adults and children alike.

The below makes enough for a big platter full, as seen in the picture, and I served with some Ketchup, BBQ sauce and a Harissa Mayo as dips. In the breadcrumb mix I've also used some garlic salt which may seem like a lot but it really does add flavour. You can always omit to use if you don't want baby having any salt content at all but they will likely only have one goujon which will contain a minimal amount.

Here's how:

• 5 breasts of chicken
• 4-5 slices of granary or brown bread
• 1 tbsp paprika
• 1 tbsp cayenne pepper
• 1 tbsp black pepper
• 1 tbsp garlic salt
• 1 tbsp oregano
• 2-3 eggs
• 200g plain flour
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil

Firstly pre-heat the oven to 180 and line two baking trays with some baking papers then brush with a tiny bit of vegetable oil and set aside for the moment.

Now get two equal sized bowls together. Crack the eggs into one and gently beat.

The flour goes into the other bowl with a pinch of black pepper.

Now you need to make your breadcrumbs by placing one slice at a time into a food processor and blitzing then pouring into a larger bowl. Repeat until all the breadcrumbs have been made.

Now add the seasoning and give a good stir so everything is combined.

Now flatten out each chicken breast onto a chopping board and chop into chunky slithers unto all have been chopped. Don't worry about each piece being exactly the same - the fact they won’t be, will add to the rustic look and demonstrate the fact they have been homemade.

Now coat each piece coat in the flour by popping into the flour and turning. Then move it into the egg and turn, ensuring each part of the goujon is coated in egg, then finally dip into the breadcrumbs and turn and place onto the baking sheet.

Once each piece has been coated in breadcrumbs place onto the baking tray and then pop both trays into the oven to bake for twenty minutes. 

Remove from the oven and serve either hot or cold with your preferred choice of dips.