How to imitate highly processed food in a healthier way

[BlessedByTheShitFairy]

This is primarily about chicken, but I would love to hear your own ideas and favourite homemade alternatives to highly processed or otherwise unhealthy foods.

My chicken question concerns those cheap little Birds Eye chargrill steaks. The one's that have a marinade dressing. I used to love them until moving over to fresh chicken and noticed the crap added to them on the pack.

But how can I achieve this taste at home with fresh chicken breast strips? The answer will be in the dressing but I can't make sense of the stuff in the ingredients list on the Birds Eye package. It all looks a bit science lab.

Any ideas?

I would also like to make a chicken Kiev but could have a google for that.

And M&S falafels, I tried a BBC recipe to attempt an imitation but they would not stay in a round ball shape in the frying pan. They tended to fall like splatted 'patties' which was a let down. I would like to know if anyone else has archived it? I have this mental image of having to copy how they make maltesers by having them dance in the air whilst cooking.

Actually Birds Eye seem to have taken some of the weird ingredients out of the chargrills, that's good news, but they're not giving away the marinade!

From Tesco:
Chicken Breast (75%), Water, Rapeseed Oil, Fortified Wheat Flour (Wheat Flour, Calcium Carbonate, Iron, Niacin, Thiamin), Starch (Maize, Wheat), Palm Oil, Salt, Rice Flour, Dried Onion, Natural Flavourings, Sugar, Yeast, Natural Emulsifier (Soya Lecithin)#, Milk Protein, Smoke Flavouring, Herbs, Black Pepper, # Lecithin is used to bind our glazes together. It is a natural material found in many traditional food ingredients

Interesting question. I haven't tried the Birds Eye things.. What do they taste of?

At a guess you'd need dried onion, black pepper, smoked paprika, mixed herbs.

I think you have to forget trying to replicate the taste. That’s done in a lab with lots of ingredients combined in a way you can’t do at home.
id focus on making recipes that are tasty and you enjoy, which comes from trying things out.
Re: falafels it depends on the recipe you’re using. Generally allowing the balls to chill before cooking helps them stay together.

Onion and garlic granules, lots of salt. I found mixing the granules with a bit of chicken stock cube and some water made a similar taste and consistency as the glaze. Just be cautious of how salty the stock cube is

There is a recipe on Pinterest for them. I’ve no idea how to get onto the actual instructions though - I find Pinterest baffling!
My 12 year old could make chicken Kievs when supervised by DH so you could definitely do those.
pin.it/DNLWMBv

Cornflake chicken with garlic/parsley butter. V similar to kiev. Dont try and do homemade kiev as it's quite tricky..

Put crushed cornflakes in one bowl, flour in another and egg in another. Flatten and dip the chicken breast in all 3, and then shallow fry. Drizzle with the garlic butter.

This is great, thank you!
I loved those things so much at one time that it would be nice to find the secret, but yes possibly not easy to replicate at home so will find something workable.

What did it taste like? Difficult to describe, god knows what was in there...slightly peppery, creamy, i dare say the chicken was low quality/welfare. I don't wish to go back to them for those reasons. Great price though, as is often the case.

Will definitely let my falafels chill before cooking!

I just checked the pinterest link but the original link to the recipe is missing. i tried finding it but nothing. Any tips on how to make the marinade? I presume flour? I have never attempted a marinade before.

Cornflake chicken sounds interesting i may try that

Falafels will fall apart if you use tinned chickpeas or don't chill the mix before cooking. Use dried chickpeas. Soak them in water with a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda for 24 hours. Drain them really,really,thoroughly. Make up the mix and then leave it to get chilled in the fridge for a few hours before frying.

Will try that, thanks!

The Pinterest link says the recipe is from recipethis.com so have a search on there.
recipethis.com/

airfryer.net/recipes/183 is a chargrill recipe