Steamed Chicken Patties Without Eggs or Flour
For some reason, since childhood I've associated steamed chicken patties with diet food. Then again, I usually preferred my steamed chicken patties with mashed potatoes and ketchup, so there was no talk of dieting. I remember we sometimes made steamed dishes at home with a makeshift steamer rigged from a pot and a colander; it works great.
Cooking food with hot steam is considered gentler than boiling. The food absorbs less water while still staying very juicy. Steaming also lets you cook different foods at the same time, and their flavors and smells may or may not mingle.
Steaming is very common in the East, in Asia. The Chinese are masters at all kinds of dishes with ground meat wrapped in dough, dumpling-style, cooked in multi-tier bamboo steamers. In Arab countries, couscous is steamed with chicken and other ingredients. Steamed rice is much tastier and more tender; by the way, steamed chicken patties with that rice make a superb diet dish.
A friend recently asked how to make steamed chicken patties without binders like grains, flour, eggs and so on. And it's true: something usually goes into patty mixture. I remembered Bulgarian kebapche, where nothing goes into the ground meat except meat, water and spices. I decided to try making steamed chicken patties purely from dark chicken meat, spices and herbs. And for a strict diet, you can essentially leave just the chicken.
You can make homemade steamed chicken patties in a special household steamer or a homemade one. Now that goods from China are easy to get, we have wonderful traditional woven bamboo steamers that sit on a pot of boiling water. An extremely useful kitchen gadget.
Steamed chicken patties are no harder to make than steamed fish. Making the ground meat is the most laborious part: it has to hold together so the patties don't fall apart or turn to mush while cooking. For diet food and so-called healthy eating, you can cut the amount and variety of spices in the mixture to a minimum; it won't affect the quality or cooking method. Though the patties will taste “bland”.
Ingredients
4 servings
- Chicken thighs 4-5
- Parsley, cilantro 5-6 sprigs
- Salt, black pepper, chili pepper, aromatic herbs to taste
- Potatoes, herbs, paprika, butter for serving
Step-by-step recipe
- All the ingredients besides the chicken are optional. If you want the steamed chicken patties to be strictly diet food, you can leave the spices and herbs out of the mixture. If you want a so-called low-carb dish, you can skip the potato side and so on. It's all up to you. By and large, steamed chicken patties can be made from chicken alone, with sauces and ketchup providing the “flavor”. I'm not a fan of chicken breast, the “white” meat, so I used chicken thighs in this recipe.
- Cut the skin and all visible fat off the chicken thighs. Carefully cut out the bone and cartilage. Grind the trimmed chicken in a meat grinder. To avoid adding binders, grind the chicken to a paste, so no big pieces of meat remain. That's hard to achieve with an ordinary meat grinder, even if you put the meat through several times. It's much easier with a food processor with blades spinning at high speed. Or, after grinding, blitz the meat further with a hand blender.
- If you're making ordinary steamed chicken patties that don't pretend to be diet food, I suggest adding finely chopped herbs. Parsley and cilantro work well; they don't give the chicken a harsh taste or smell. Season lightly with salt and pepper, and add a pinch of chili pepper and aromatic herbs, for example those typical of Mediterranean cooking.
- Mix the ground chicken very thoroughly with a fork. By the way, the mixture sticks badly to your hands, so it's best to handle it with utensils and fingers dipped in cold water. Put the mixture in the fridge briefly while the water in the steamer comes to a boil.
- Wet a flat plate with water. Wetting your hands often, shape 8 oval patties, like ordinary breaded fried chicken patties. Put the shaped patties on the plate.
- As soon as the water in the pot boils, take the lid off the steamer and line the bottom with a liner to keep food from sticking to the wooden basket. Lay all the patties in a single layer, trying to keep them from touching.
- Cover the steamer and keep steaming the chicken patties. By the way, steam is very hot, so follow safety rules: above all, keep your hands away and open the lid with an oven mitt. Also, the woven basket has lots of gaps that steam can escape through.
- Steamed chicken patties usually take 8-10 minutes. Given how chunky they are, you can go up to 15 minutes. But as it turned out, even 10 minutes of steam cooks this much ground chicken perfectly.
- While the steamed chicken patties cook, you can make a side dish if you like. I love steamed patties with mashed potatoes; that's a personal thing. For dishes like this, we usually make the mash a little looser than for fried homemade patties. Spread the mashed potatoes on a plate in an even layer and sprinkle with finely chopped herbs and a pinch of paprika.
- Put the steamed chicken patties on top of the mash, two per serving. Melt a knob of real butter and drizzle it over the patties and potatoes. The dish is ready to serve: unbelievably tasty, a taste from childhood that thrills me every time.
| Serves: | 4 servings |
| Calories: | 155 |
| Prep: | 15 mins |
| Cook: | 15 mins |
| Total: | 30 mins |
| Category: | Main Dishes |
| Cuisine: | European |
| Rating: |
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4.9
(10)
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