Superbowl Sunday, Chicken Strips

Seeing as I begged to buy some Panko bread crumbs the last time we visited Costco, I had to come up with something creative to use them on.  I have heard time and time again that making chicken strips is super easy and after watching something on the food network I decided to give it a go.  

Got my chicken breast's cutup into 1/2" thick strips.  So long as everything is uniform in thickness the length doesn't matter as it will cook the same.  My flour mixture is a combination of all purpose flour, salt, white pepper, and a touch of chili powder.  the Ziploc bags are amazing for anything that needs to be mixed.  No mess !  I used panko bread crumbs for the outside coating about 3 cups worth I  believe.

Chicken sitting in the egg wash, I added a splash of milk so that the eggs wouldn't be so thick.  Just drop them in and coat on both sides and then off to the bread crumbs !

Forgot to snap a picture of the chicken strips sitting in the breading but this i the next best thing.  After coating the "secret" is to let the excess moisture from the egg dry off.  Just like any other meat it is important to let your protein get to room temperature before cooking so that it cooks evenly.   About 15 mins later they  are ready to be fried.

I heated up about half a saute pan worth of canola oil.  As I don't have a frying thermometer I determined that the oil was sufficiently hot by sticking a wooden chopstick into the bottom.  If you see bubbles forming from that point you are good to go !  Once the oil was at temperature I had to play with my stove to keep it constant (setting 6, medium-high heat).  Don't cook more than 2 or 3 pieces at once otherwise your oil temperature will decrease too quickly.  It only takes about 2 mins per side, flip once and you'll get some amazing color.  If your hot oil is too cool (oxymoron I know) you end up with soggy chicken, too hot and it burns.

After about 4 to 4.5 minutes it's time to take them out and let them cool on a rack to drain off some of the oil.

Picture of the final presentation, I didn't take pictures of the homemade honey mustard dip, that's actually quite easy to make.  Mayonnaise, regular mustard, dijon mustard, rice vinegar, and some honey.  (Bonus points if anyone can tell me how to make a honey mustard dip like the one at White Spot)

All in all a pretty good first attempt at making chicken strips from scratch.  Panko bread crumbs are amazing and they were not oily at all.  The only changes I would like to make are with the dip, it was a little runny so  I suppose next time some more mayonnaise and more honey?