The Party Platter I Built My Business On

I will tell you a secret about chicken goujons. Most people get them wrong before the chicken ever touches a breadcrumb. The crumb is never the problem. The problem is that nobody gave the chicken a reason to taste good.

When Full Feast started in 2014 it was not a sauce company. It was a catering company, and a catering company in London lives and dies by the party platter. Weddings, christenings, office parties in halls with bad lighting and good people. I would arrive with the car full of trays, and the first thing to disappear, every single time, before the rice, before the jerk, before anything I was proud of, was the plate of goujons. So I stopped being proud and started making them properly.

Properly, for me, means the way we do party food back home in Guadeloupe. We do not have goujons on my island. What we have is accras, little salt cod fritters, fried at every family gathering, every christening, every Good Friday, and eaten standing up with a squeeze of lime while the grown-ups hold a ti-punch. My mother made hundreds of them for a party, and the batter always sat for an hour first, soaking up the garlic and chive and chilli. The flavour went in before the frying. That is the whole secret, and I simply carried it across to chicken.

So these are my goujons. The chicken sits in a marinade of passion fruit, lime, garlic and allspice while the oven heats. Then it goes into a crumb with a little coconut in it, and it bakes until it is golden and crisp and juicy enough that nobody at the party believes you did not fry them. Make a big platter. They will still go first.

Recipe at a glance

• Cuisine: Caribbean (a Guadeloupean cook’s take on a British party favourite)
• Prep: 25 minutes, including 15 minutes marinating • Cook: 20 minutes • Total: 45 minutes
• Serves: 6 as a party platter (about 30 goujons)
• Featured sauce: Exotic Caribbean Sauce
• Heat level: 3/10, a fruity warmth that children happily eat
• Diet: Dairy free. Not gluten free as written (the flour and breadcrumbs); swap them for cornflour and gluten free breadcrumbs and it is

What you’ll need

Chicken breast is the right cut here. It cooks fast, it cuts into neat fingers, and the marinade does the work of keeping it juicy. In most UK supermarkets you can buy mini fillets, which saves you the knife work. Panko gives the lightest, crispest coat, but ordinary dried breadcrumbs work, and I add desiccated coconut because it browns beautifully and tastes of home.

The marinade and the dip both come from one jar of my Exotic Caribbean Sauce. It is mostly onion and passion fruit juice, with a gentle chilli and a little vinegar, which is exactly what chicken breast wants before it meets a crumb: acid to soften it, fruit to sweeten it, and just enough warmth to make people reach for a second one.

For the chicken and marinade:

• 900 g skinless chicken breast or mini fillets, cut into finger-width strips
• 4 tbsp Full Feast Exotic Caribbean Sauce
• 1 lime, juiced
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 tsp ground allspice
• 1 tsp dried thyme (or the leaves from 3 fresh sprigs)
• 1 tsp salt
• ½ tsp freshly ground black pepper

For the coating:

• 100 g plain flour (cornflour for a gluten free platter)
• 1 tsp paprika
• 3 large eggs, beaten
• 180 g panko or dried breadcrumbs (gluten free breadcrumbs if you need them)
• 50 g desiccated coconut, unsweetened
• 3 tbsp vegetable oil, for drizzling

For the passion fruit dip:

• 150 g mayonnaise
• 3 tbsp Full Feast Exotic Caribbean Sauce
• Zest of ½ lime
• 1 spring onion, very finely sliced

To serve: lime wedges and a few coriander leaves

How I make it

1. Cut the chicken. If you have whole breasts, lay each one flat and cut it lengthways into strips about 2 cm wide, roughly the size of your finger. Mini fillets you leave as they are, halving any fat ones. Even sizes cook evenly, and evenly is everything on a tray of 30.
2. Marinate. In a big bowl, mix 4 tablespoons of Exotic Caribbean Sauce with the lime juice, garlic, allspice, thyme, salt and pepper. Add the chicken and turn it with your hands until every strip is coated. Leave it for 15 minutes while the oven heats. If you are organised, cover it and give it up to 4 hours in the fridge. Longer than that and the lime starts to tighten the meat.
3. Heat the oven and the trays. Set the oven to 200°C (180°C fan, gas 6). Line two large baking trays with baking paper and brush each with a little of the oil. A hot, lightly oiled tray is what gives you a crisp bottom instead of a soggy one.
4. Set up the crumb station. Three shallow bowls in a row. First bowl: flour, paprika and a pinch of salt. Second bowl: the beaten eggs. Third bowl: panko and coconut, rubbed together with your fingers so the coconut spreads through. Have your trays at the end of the line.
5. Coat the goujons. Lift a strip out of the marinade and let the excess drip off, but do not wipe it clean. The thin layer of sauce clinging to the meat is flavour. Roll it in the flour, dip it in the egg, then press it into the crumb on all sides. Lay it on the tray. Keep going, leaving a finger’s gap between each one so the hot air can get round them.
6. Oil and bake. Drizzle the remaining oil over the tops of the goujons, lightly, like you are dressing a salad. Into the oven for 10 minutes.
7. Turn and finish. Turn each goujon over with tongs and bake for another 8 to 10 minutes until the crumb is deep golden and the chicken is firm. Check the thickest one: the centre should be white all the way through, with no pink, and a thermometer should read 75°C. Thin strips are usually done at 18 minutes, fat mini fillets need the full 20.
8. Make the dip while they bake. Stir the mayonnaise with 3 tablespoons of Exotic Caribbean Sauce, the lime zest and the spring onion. Taste it. If you want it brighter, add a squeeze of the lime.
9. Rest and serve. Give the goujons 2 minutes on the tray so the juices settle, then pile them on a platter with the dip in the middle, lime wedges around the edge and a few coriander leaves over the top. Eat them hot.

The role of Exotic Caribbean Sauce in this dish

Exotic Caribbean Sauce does two jobs here, and they are both quiet ones. In the marinade, the passion fruit and the vinegar soften the chicken the way lime juice softens fish for a ceviche, only gentler, so the breast stays juicy through 20 minutes of hot oven. The onion in the sauce clings to the meat and caramelises a little under the crumb.

In the dip it is louder. Mayonnaise is a blank page, and three spoons of this sauce write on it: fruit first, then a soft chilli warmth, then the lime zest lifting everything.

Tips from my kitchen

• Do not skip the marinade, even for 15 minutes. This is the difference between goujons that taste of crumb and goujons that taste of chicken. If you have time, do it in the morning for the evening.
• Keep one hand dry. Use your left hand for the flour and crumb and your right for the egg. Otherwise your fingers turn into goujons.
• Hot tray, light oil, space between. Those three things are why these come out crisp from an oven. Crowd the tray and they steam.
• For a crowd, bake ahead and reheat. Cook them fully, cool them on a rack, then give them 8 minutes at 200°C just before people arrive. The crumb comes back. They are the best thing on a Bonfire Night table beside my spicy potato wedges, which cook at the same temperature.
• Air fryer. Spray the basket, lay them in one layer, 12 to 14 minutes at 190°C, turning once. No oil drizzle needed. You will need to do them in batches for a platter.

What to serve it with

At a party these go in the middle of the table with the dip and nothing else, and that is enough. If you are making them a meal, I put a bowl of my Caribbean coleslaw beside them, because the cold crunch against the hot crumb is the whole point, and the wedges above or a pile of plantain chips for the people who want something to scoop with.

For a proper Caribbean platter, add my flaming prawn skewers at the other end of the table so the heat-seekers have somewhere to go. And for the grown-ups who find the passion fruit dip too polite, put a small bowl of Flaming BBQ Sauce straight from the jar beside it.

If you want to know what the fruit in that jar actually is, I wrote about passion fruit and how we drink it back home.

FAQ

What are chicken goujons?

Goujons are strips of chicken (or fish) coated in breadcrumbs and cooked until crisp. The word is French: a goujon is a gudgeon, a small river fish, and the little fried fillets took the name of the fish and then the name travelled to chicken. Goujons and tenders are more or less the same idea; “tenders” is the American word, and tenders are often cut from the small fillet under the breast.

How do you make chicken goujons with breadcrumbs that actually stay crisp?

Three things. Flour first, so the egg has something to hold; egg second, so the crumb has something to stick to; and a hot, lightly oiled tray with space between the goujons so the heat gets round them. A drizzle of oil over the top before baking browns the crumb like a shallow fry would. If your goujons come out pale, your oven was not hot enough or the tray was too crowded.

Can you cook chicken goujons in an air fryer?

Yes, and they come out very crisp. Follow the recipe to the end of the coating, then lay them in a single layer in a sprayed basket and cook at 190°C for 12 to 14 minutes, turning them halfway. Skip the oil drizzle. Check the centre of the thickest one is white through and reaches 75°C.

Why are my chicken goujons pink in the middle?

Either they are cut too thick for the time, or they went in too close together, or your oven runs cool. Chicken breast is safe to eat when the centre reaches 75°C and the juices are clear. If a goujon is pink inside, put the tray back for 3 or 4 minutes and check again. Cutting the strips to an even finger width at the start is the best way to avoid it.

Can you freeze chicken goujons?

Yes, two ways. Freeze them raw after coating, laid flat on a tray and then bagged, and bake from frozen at 200°C for 25 to 28 minutes, turning once. Or freeze them cooked and reheat for 10 to 12 minutes at 200°C. For allergens, this recipe contains egg (coating and mayonnaise) and wheat (flour and breadcrumbs) as written.

Final word from me

This is the plate that paid the bills in the early days, and I still love making it. There is something honest about a tray of goujons: nobody pretends it is fine dining, and everybody eats it. Give the chicken its 15 minutes in the passion fruit before you crumb it. Put the dip in the middle. Watch the hands come in from every side of the table, the way they did at my mother’s for a plate of accras.

Make a big platter. Then make another one.

JP