- I know this about you: you love chicken tenders. You love them. You might not ever eat them—you might be a vegetarian or a vegan, or not consume birds for whatever reason, or not want to deal with the carbs, or not think it’s okay for adult humans with serious opinions about fracking to dip a toe into the children’s menu—but that’s a choice about ingesting them. It’s not you not loving them. Because you do. You love chicken tenders. Everybody does.
There are many delicious lines in this rumination on simplicity. This is just one of them: Stepping away from the wood-grilled matsutake mushrooms with nasturtium agrodolce, and towards an uncomplicated hunk of meat is the gastronomic equivalent of collapsing into your bed at the end of a long day.
I find it's so hard to find good chicken tenders. I've had great chicken tenders (I prefer mine coated in buffalo sauce), and now chicken nuggets or sub-par chicken tenders are an insult to my palate. I tend to avoid chicken tenders now unless I know they will be first rate.
I don't love chicken tenders but I made some last week. My kid is a punky eater, and I try to make a few meals a week with her specifically in mind. They turned out great. I soaked the chicken overnight in a buttermilk and spice mixture, didn't use panko, just buttermilk moistened flour and spice mixture. The adults had theirs sliced on a salad.