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Fried Chicken Tenders

Welcome back! 
Time for a fan favorite: Fried Chicken Tenders! This is a classic dish that most Americans are familiar with, along with the burger and hot dog posted previously. It also pairs perfectly with coleslaw, which is coming right up in our fast food recreations! Now, you may be thinking that chicken tenders are not that versatile, but we actually prepared them three ways: the traditional, straight up chicken, a chicken sandwich, and fried chicken tacos. 
Just a side note, this spice recipe must seem oddly specific, right? That's because apparently, in a Chicago Tribune post, the recipe to KFC's 11 herbs and spices was leaked, so we used that to season our chicken. Did it taste good? Yeah! Did it taste like KFC? Maybe...

Fried Chicken Tenders


Makes about 12 large tenders

Ingredients:

  • 3-4 pounds chicken tenders
  • 1 cup buttermilk
  • 1 egg
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
Spices:
  • 2/3 tablespoon salt
  • 1/2 tablespoon thyme
  • 1/2 tablespoon basil
  • 1/3 tablespoon oregano
  • 1 tablespoon celery salt
  • 1 tablespoon black pepper
  • 1 tablespoon dried mustard
  • 4 tablespoons paprika
  • 2 tablespoon garlic salt
  • 1 tablespoon ground ginger
  • 3 tablespoons white pepper

Directions:

  1. Prepare your spices by mixing all the spices along with the flour. For this amount of chicken tenders, you'll only need about half of this mix, so you can save it or just half the recipe.
  2. Mix the buttermilk and egg, then put in all of your chicken in it and stir it around so that all of the chicken is covered in the mixture.
  3. Put the chicken in the fridge for at least an hour, maybe more.
  4. After it is chilled, take the tenders, one at a time, coat it in the flour/spice mix. Let this sit for a little so that it soaks in a little.
  5. Now, deep-fry each tender until they are golden-brown. This should take about 6 minutes but be flexible.
Great! Now you've got all this chicken to eat. We got some pretty massive tenders, so just a couple tenders was enough. But wait! You're not going to eat this chicken plain, right? So we have a special fried chicken sauce that tastes suspiciously like the one from Raising Cane's, whose chicken is really good.

Fried Chicken Sauce

Ingredients:

  • 1/4 cup mayo
  • 2 tablespoon ketchup
  • 1/4 tablespoon garlic powder
  • 1/4 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
  • A pinch each of black pepper and paprika
  • 1/2 teaspoon celery seed
  • 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar*
  • 1 teaspoon sugar*
*You can replace these two with a tablespoon of coleslaw juice, basically the liquid at the bottom of the coleslaw that is made up of some pretty similar stuff. 

Directions:

  1. Mix all the ingredients.
That's pretty easy, huh? Now, you can enjoy chicken tenders at home in whatever style you want. Here's some pictures of how we did it:
A classic tenders plate

Chicken Tender Sandwich with curly fries

Fried chicken taco



And that's it! Coleslaw coming soon...

-Chefpo

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