The Ultimate Chicken Tenders

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We love fried chicken so much we opened a whole restaurant dedicated to serving it. Naturally, we’ve picked up a technique or two about how to get the best results. Today, we’re showing you how to make the most unreal chicken tenders, at home.

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Jack & Will

Chicken tenders are easily the ultimate finger food. But there’s nothing worse than a disappointingly soft crust or a mouthful of dry chicken. A few simple changes will help you ace the perfect chicken tender:

1. Use thighs, not tenderloin. More fat = no dryness. Tenderloins also tend to be too smooth for the dredge to hold onto.

2. Marinate your chicken. We like to use sriracha in the marinade, as the acidity helps tenderise the meat and adds flavour.

3. Use buttermilk in your wet dredge. An extra layer of fat around the lean chicken adds unctuousness and boosts even cooking.

Once you’ve followed these steps, you won’t look back. These are the ultimate, bar-raising chicken tenders. Recipe below.

Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 12 Chicken Thighs

Marinade

• 240g Sriracha

• 120g water

• 14g fine salt

• Dry dredge

Wet dredge

• 100g sparkling water

• 100g buttermilk

• 25g cornflour

Dry dredge

• 400g plain flour

• 160g potato starch

• 17g baking powder

• 12g Fine Sea Salt

• 20g MSG

• 20g White pepper

• 5g Black pepper

• 5g Onion powder

• 5g garlic powder

• 5g Cayenne pepper

Sriracha Honey

• 100g Honey

• 15g Fallow sriracha

• Pinch of salt

• Pinch of black pepper

Method:

1. Unroll each thigh, slice in half lengthways and score a few times on each side

2. In a mixing bowl, combine the Sriracha, water and salt.

3. Submerge the chicken thighs in the marinade, cover and refrigerate over night

4. Make a buttermilk and corn flour slurry but whisking the buttermilk and cornflour together

5. In a separate bowl, mix all the dry dredge ingredients together

6. Remove from the marinade, allowing the excess to drip off for a few seconds

7. Transfer the marinated tenders to the dry dredge, turning 60 times to fully coat!

8. Dip each piece into the wet dredge before returning to the dry dredge and turning 60 time again

9. Once all the tenders have been coated in the dry dredge, fry in pan of neutral oil heated to 180°C

10. Fry until golden brown and the internal temperature reaches 68°C before carefully removing from the oil, seasoning and leaving to drain

11. To make the sriracha honey, warm the honey in a saucepan and whisk in the sriracha. Season and serve with the tenders

Thanks for reading!

Jack & Will

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