Adding chicken nuggets to everything you eat is a terrible idea

I love chicken nuggets. With their crisp, golden physique and succulent flesh, one bite is never enough. I’ve spent many evenings dedicated to loving chicken nuggets, and I make no apologies for it.

This didn’t go unnoticed by my housemates. In fact, they started to think my devotion to this crunchy, versatile, delicious chicken product was, well, a little weird.

To test the strength of this love, and to prove to my dubious housemates the humble nugget is the best food of all, I decided to shake up societal food norms: I wanted to prove there is nothing chicken nuggets don’t go well with.

Nug life

Nugget pasta

The first step towards revolutionising the chicken nugget was through cooking what would prove to become a fast-favourite: fusilli alla nugget. A neo-Italian classic, it’s just like what mamma would make if she liked frozen chicken bits.

Bellissimo!

The meal, although losing points for presentation, provided the perfect contrast between soft pasta and crisp nugget. Each morsel delivered sweet, fresh notes from the peppers, with the nugget leaving a reminder across the palette that the best foods are ones which barely resemble what they’re made from.

The success of this meal led to a barrage of nugget based savoury treats: even my housemates started getting in on the act, one quickly following suit with his own nuggety pasta, while a braver compatriot concocted a chicken nugget risotto.

However, the most controversial challenge was yet to come: creating a trio of chicken nugget desserts.

Fizzy lace nuggets

The first of these desserts was a sugary spin on pigs in blankets. By wrapping a single nugget in two strawberry fizzy laces, this was a dessert that would both satisfy your arteries’ need to be clogged, and give you a higher chance of getting diabetes.

You will not regret making this at home

Surprisingly, it tasted quite nice, although the overpowering nature of the laces made it lack the distinctive nugget flavour I’ve come to love so dearly.

A housemate even tested this one, resulting in barely any complaints, which is a great feat considering the amount of disgusted grimaces on everyone else’s faces.

Lemon drizzle nuggets

The second of the nuggety menage-a-trois was a lemon drizzle cupcake sandwich.

It’s an elegant looking dish

Upon taking a bite of this summery looking snack, I feigned enjoyment – I’m not going to lie to you though – this one pushed my love of the humble nugget to its limits.

The cupcake had formed an odd, sticky layer around the sweating exterior of the nugget, which clung to the roof of the mouth like a drunk fresher around Bunker’s toilet bowls.

My inability to swallow this frankenstein desert was a sure sign of failure. I bid farewell to the cupcake, and moved onto the final task.

Chicken nugget sundae

The final dessert was a layered chicken nugget ice cream sundae.

Refreshing, creamy and a little bit salty

A visual masterpiece, the sundae was both easy on the eyes and on the tongue. The first few minutes of eating this dessert was bliss, a surprisingly enjoyable treat after the miserable disappointment of the cupcake.

However, after a few short moments of pleasure, it all fell apart.

The nuggets began to succumb to the creaminess of the ice cream, and were quickly reduced to lumps of cold, soggy heartbreak. Each bite was forcing me to fall a little bit less in love with chicken nuggets. I binned the rest of the sundae, the soggy nuggets moistened by my hot tears of disappointment.

My housemates gave me their final opinions on the attempt to overthrow societal food standards. Issy expressed her disappoint in me throwing away some of the nugget concoctions, while Mark thought the whole thing was “complete and utter bollocks’.

It’s often the greatest revolutions which end in disaster: just look at Russia’s 20th century. Maybe if Lenin & co had turned their considerable intellects towards making chicken-nugget-based desserts instead of imposing War Communism on the peasantry, things would have worked out better over there.

Sometimes, we must accept defeat. Although my love for nuggets has been dampened, every time I find myself walking past the frozen section in Sainsbury’s, I’ll hear the whisper of “Nuggets” floating from the chill, and be reminded of a passion that could once build majestically soggy sundaes.