Honey mustard please. Wow. Hey, welcome to Mythical Kitchen, where dreams become food. Today is a good day. No, a great day. No, the best day because I am taste testing 23 different kinds of chicken tenders. Chicken tenders are one of the world’s great foods but I have been making it the same way for years using normal wheat flour. But there are a world of possibilities out there. We’re testing Fruity PEBBLES, we’re testing pretzels, corn nuts, rice flour, potato starch. We are covering all of the chicken tender bases today to find out what actually makes the best product. And this isn’t for me. No. Do I get to benefit and eat 23 tenders today? Absotutely. But no, this is for you. How is it for you? Like kind of unclear, but it is. Let’s get cookin’. All right, so this is my tried and true chicken tender method. I love making chicken tenders at home. I’ve especially started making them when I come home from a bar at like 2:00 in the morning, which deep frying whilst drunk, probably not a good idea for you, but I’m a trained professional. So this is the OG method that we’re going to test all the other 22 chicken tenders against to see if it’s actually better. So let’s get to it, we got Tony Chachere’s, best Cajun seasoning in the game, and we’re just gonna take that and we’re gonna dust it all over these tendies. Only have one raw meat hand, even though some people say it feels better to switch up, to the other hand… that’s a joke about self pleasure, which is an important, you know, it’s like de-stigmatize it. We seasoned up our chicken tendies. I’m not saying this is the best chicken tender you’ll ever have in your entire life. I am saying it’s like about as good as Denny’s and they make it pretty God dang good chicken tender. So we seasoned up our flour with Tony Chachere’s, his normal AP flour where we take some hot sauce got the Louisiana hot sauce going into the eggs right there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we’re just gonna do a classic double dredge of like dry, back into wet, back into dry. But we’re gonna do one little trick to make it extra crispy. Do you guys know Colonel Sanders hated the extra crispy chicken? He was like, “They turned my chicken into dough balls.” and I’m like, “This is the drama I’m here for.” I don’t know anything about the Florence Pugh-Shia LaBeouf drama, but I do know about Colonel Sanders. I forgot to mix the seasoning again. Shoot. Uh oh. Sorry, I was talking about Shia LaBeouf and who knows, this happened. Oh, I’ll say I did not care about that movie until all that started happening. And I’m like, “Well I’m in. Let’s see if Olivia Wilde gets, I don’t know served a divorce papers…” Crazy stuff. All right, so we’re gonna take the chicken tenders into some of the flour, just gonna drop that right into the egg. We’re gonna hold that there. And then the little trick to get this nice and extra crispy, I think I read this from J. Kenji Lopez-Alt once, which, like that dude, check him out on YouTube. Incredible cook. But you take some water and you mix that into the flour and then you’re just gonna go in and like whisk it up and that’s gonna add these like extra little crispity-crackity chunks on there. ‘Cause if you notice when you’re frying a big batch of chicken, the chicken towards the end always turns out better, because all of the wet batter is like getting… Are you laughing that I started whisking it but went with my hands? Yeah you are. Chicken into the wet, now it’s gonna go into the dry again. Dang it. I… Oh… sacrificed wet hand, dry hand. Sometimes you gotta go wet, dry, wet, dry hand back to dry hand and then sit on your hand so it gets numb for 15 minutes. So you’re gonna go ahead and be normal man. You said you were gonna be more normal this episode and then you forgot. Normally I’d leave these depending on like what my timetable is, ’cause like sometimes, you’ll come home a little drunk and then you’ll be like prepping food and then the oil’s not hot. So you play a couple games of Rocket League but you’re drunk so you can’t really tell where the ball is and then you can drop like six ranks and then you really gotta like go hard the next day trying to make that up. What I’m saying is normally I’ll leave the chicken buried in the flour. So it kind of all comes together for like an hour. But you can really just drop it in, fresh. There you go. That’s what we’re looking for. Gonna go into our 350 degree oil. Perfect. And boom, there’s your classic chicken tendie. Now just get a little bit chilly with it. I don’t know what that voice was, like somewhere in between Jim Carey from The Mask, and Sean Connery. Look at these perfect little crispy chicken tendies. You see the lovely extra craggy coating. Now the proper dipping technique, you take bottled Caesar dressing ’cause it tastes more like ranch than bottled ranch. You add a float of hot sauce and then you take a tendie and you use that to stir it together. Do y’all do this? Am I the only that does this? You mix condiments, like use a fryer tendie? Just me. All right. That’s cool. Oh, hot Oh my God. Give me a second Oh so good though. God, what a delight. When Vishnu gave us, I’m choosing Hinduism. Just go with me. When Vishnu gave us chicken tendies, did a great job. I can’t imagine a better chicken tender experience than this, but we’re about to find out ’cause we got 22 more of these bad boys coming up. Now we are faced with the incredibly daunting task of making 23 different chicken tenders. And as always, when faced with several simple tasks I get overwhelmed, but let’s do it. So let’s go through the different coatings that we have. First up, funfetti cake mix, Panko bread crumbs, chicharrones, Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, potato starch, whole wheat flour, oats, tortilla chips, potato chips, corn meal, Fruity PEBBLES, pretzels, Cheez-Its, Caesar salad croutons, masa, sesame seeds, rice flour, pistachios, corn flakes, barbecue corn nuts, triscuits, and seasoned Italian bread crumbs. I felt like I was taking the ADHD test all over again where they were just like, “I’m gonna say a word. Repeat it back to me.” All right so now we’re just got start frying all these here chicken tenders. We got some of the more interesting ones over here. I’m just gonna start dropping and frying. We have Fruity PEBBLES, which like huge novelty. It’s gonna look super fun, be very colorful. I have no idea if it’s gonna taste good, but again we’re doing all this blindfolded. Just gonna put it in there and then shake the bag. We’ll leave that to shake later. Another one that… I’ve done potato chip chicken tenders before and it is really good. Don’t know if it holds up in a blind taste test but to give it the best shot, we’re using Trader Joe’s potato chips, the official best potato chip as ranked by sporked.com. Go head over to Sporked. Honestly, I’d never had these before and then I talked to the Sporked folks and they put me onto ’em. I’d never…now, hold on. No, you gotta see this, ’cause I don’t mean to like extend this plug. Have you ever seen this many whole unbroken potato chips in one freaking bag? It’s unreal. Like Trader Joes figured it out and they tastes really good. Head over to Sporked. Get yourself some of these. God, so good. I’m not even like a plain potato chip guy. I’m a kettle man myself. Those are a game changer. Potato chips, you know that it’s gonna get super crunchy ’cause they’re already fried. So basically double frying them. Oatmeal. Who the hell knows? Maybe people have been sleeping on oatmeal the entire time when it comes to chicken tendies, possibly. I mean I can see a world in which it works, right? Like oat flour’s used in baking a lot. You get nice big chunks on there, so you know that it’s gonna be like super crunchy. That could be really good. Potato flour is like the TikTok fried chicken darling ’cause that’s how I view the world. But like every chef on TikTok seems to be saying you add potato flour to get it extra crispy. I’ve found the opposite when I make fried chicken. But again, never done it blind. So we’ll see what happens with the potato flour. Into the bag. We got a lot. And now pork rinds, shout out to the keto body building carnivore community out there ’cause this is just animal product that has been ground up. I’ve done this before and it is a very trippy texture. And again, zero carb if you happen to be a person who cares about that type of stuff. This is, we got the four keto people who watch the show at home going, “Yeah, yeah, my pee smells weird.” That’s part of being in ketosis for people who don’t know. Or they just have weird smelling pee. Maybe they’re keto, and love asparagus. All I know is if I eat a bunch of garlic and drink a bunch of coffee my pee smells like garlic and coffee. Don’t know if there’s medical…anywhom. We’re gonna shake these up. We’re gonna start dropping these in the fryer. My hands are already dirty and I am already psychically overwhelmed. So friends help, we’re bringing in reinforcements. We’re gonna bread all 23 of these and then me and V are going to blind taste this. Then rank them by taste and see which ones are actually the best. Are you ready? You smell nice. Thank you. What’s pressing up against my back? Oh god, it’s just V. Oh As you can see we have blindfolds on and we have 23 tenders in front of us. V and I are going to taste them all, guess what they are, rank them out of 10. We got dipping sauces for good measure. We also got trustee stage hands, Trevor and Nicole, gonna be feeding us. Gonna try and not bite off any fingies. Don’t bite my fingers. I won’t bite your fingers, Nicole. Ready to get into it? Yeah. All right. we don’t, we do not know the orders. This is all guesswork. All right. Open wide. Hmm. That just tastes like nothing to me. I have an idea. Croutons Potato Chips 5.2 2 Open wide. Very crispy. Hmm Hmm. Okay, I’m ready. What? Did you swallow already? No, but you gotta taste it. Nom nom nom. No. I’m going. Bread crumbs. Pretzels 6.1 7 Open wide. Here comes the airplane. Hmm. Oh Eh. Yep. Uhuh. You and I experiencing the same thing V. Go gimme a sip of barbecue sauce It’s like soggy. Do you want any sauces? No, I’m good. I like to just taste the chicken. Potato flour. Masa. 3.2 6. Open wide. All right, we’re moving? Ah. Coming in. You love to see it. Wait, dip it in honey musty. Yo, we ready dip that one, dude. That one in ranch. It helped but not that much. Oh my god. That one’s good. What? No, you’re tripping bro. That one’s good. All right. Fruity PEBBLES. 9 2.1. What? 9? Oh. Okay. Hmm. I think that I dig that. Rice flour. Whole wheat flour. 4.2 2. Ah Gah, gah. Wow. Interesting texture. Gah. Need more? No That’s shocking. Oh I’m having a great time. Oh God. Okay, I’m ready. Whoa. Sesame seed. 4. Sesame seed. 1. I don’t like it. I don’t like that. I have so much half-chewed chicken bites in my gut. All Right. We lost some sesame seeds in my teeth. Next one. Ah Hmm Oh God. I hate that Tastes burnt. I’m think know what thing that is. Potato flour. 1.6. Oh God. Oh, sorry. That tastes like it’s some kind of Italian seasoning. 2 Get it in. Oh, hoho. I can’t even taste that. Can I smell it? That legal? Yeah. Can we smell it? That’s Masa. That’s… 4. That’s a corn nut. And that’s a 9. Dude. That what was my other option. That’s a corn nut. And that’s a 9. Oh yeah. There it is. There it is. Oh. Hello, my old friend. I think COVID messed up my… Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. 6.8. That one smells like corn nuts to me. 3 Next tendie Open. Oh, Why do all these taste the same to me? Yeah, the blindfold really messes you up. Yeah, I know It does. Everything tastes the same. Oh, I think I might know. Pork rind. 5.2. It’s definitely pork rinds. Pork rind. 1. Shout out to “keto, my pee smells weird.” Oh. Yeah. Yeah. It’s obvious to you? Hmm? Where are you? What’d you say? I can’t hear you. I dunno what that is. I think I do Croutons. Yeah. 6. Sayin’ Italian bread crumbs. 6.1. Oh hell yeah. Well hell yeah. There we go. Oh my God. Wait. That’s the hell I’m talking about? How am I gonna do this? Oh hell yeah. Cheez-Its. 9.2. No bro. That tastes like Panko Panko, 4. 1, 2. Open up. Dude, I lost my taste buds. This is bad. Yeah, I gotta stop smoking them Camel Crushes. Aint nobody smoke that crap. I think I know what that is. I think. Oatmeal, 5. Tortilla chip, 7. Oh no. Oh Oh heck. I was curious what that one was gonna do in the fryer. And now we know. Yeah. Same Funfetti cake batter. And that’s a 2.3 -2 No, I like it better than Fruity Pebs. Oh. It leaves a chalky mouth feel. Ugh. Oh ****. No. Can I downgrade it to a 0? I’m not in the negatives, but the aftertaste is horrifying. Yeah, it’s pretty bad. Oh man. Wait, wait. I know this, I know it. Mmmm mmmm. Oh god. Potato chip. 8.7. Yeah, that’s potato chip for sure. And it’s 9. Open up. Hmm. What the hell? Am I allowed to feel the texture? No. Wait a sec. Okay. I feel like made a grave mistake earlier. Yeah. Definitely. Corn nuts. Corn. Yeah, that’s corn nuts. Like 4.6. Ugh. Corn nuts. 3. What was the one I was so jazzed about earlier? The fudge was that? Got airplane coming in. Ah. Ah. What airline is that? Good Lord. [Trevor And Nicole] Spirit. That’s classic bread crumb. I’m saying Panko. And I’m saying like 8.2 6. You have to Can I stop? You have to. Open up. Not a shame. Open your mouth. I’ve eaten my fill. Open Oh God. Oh God. Uh uh. I don’t like that. I think I know what it is now. Corn meal. Like 3.2 Cornmeal, 2. I love corn meal on catfish. Oh But chicken’s different. You can’t fry chicken like fish. All right, next tendie. Okay I’ve cotton mouth. Hmm I think I know. Hold on. At this point, it’s a matter of principle, not drinking water. More? Yeah. Yeah. This time I need one more to decide. Would you like any condiments? Yeah. Sip of honey musty. Sip of honey musty please. Wow Thank you. Cola would mess everything up. Rice flour. 4.2. What tri…? What was the…? Triscuit? Triscuit. Triscuit. What number? Oh. 1 Yeah. Wasn’t good. Let me in. Oh Oh Mm. That’ fun and weird. I like that. I know exactly what that is. That’s pistachio. That’s like a 7.2 man. That’s good. Oh fam. That’s 2.7. What? Other way around. [Trevor, Nicole And V] Chuga, chuga, chuga. Choo choo. Ah. Oh. We were talking to him. Just bite it. I got, I’ll give 10 to it or whatever. I got straight just chicken. That’s a Cheez-It. That’s a God damn Cheez-It. That’s a Cheez-it and that’s a 5. What did I think was a Cheez-it earlier? Cheez-It, 3. No, my top score was what I thought was a Cheez-it. But that’s a Cheez-it What is this Nicole? Where is it? Oh. I thought I’d look for helicopters. That’s a… My taste buds are kind of pissed right now. Rice flour. Normal. That’s normal. And that’s, that’s an 8.1. That’s AP. I’d say a nice solid 7. Last tendie. Praise be to Allah I forgot which I didn’t say yet. God. Oh, it all tastes the same now. That’s what I was saying. Oh man. Cornflake. That’s normally AP flour and that’s also a 7.2. The last two were the same. You’re trying to trick me. I’ve never trusted either of you. Cornflake, 7. Can I please stop eating chicken tenders? At least like, more than half tasted the same. Oh dude. We’re getting chicken catered for lunch. Are we? How’d we do? 100%? Yeah. Look at all those tendies bro. My eyes. Ugh All right So, V Yeah. You got 9 correct. Word. That’s solid. Josh. You got 13 correct. No way. Damn. Hey, hold on. I did better than I thought I was gonna do. So I’m pretty proud of myself. The chicken tender that performed the worst, with a score of -2, was Funfetti. Yeah. No, we had to try. We had to try. The tender that performed the best with 17.7 was cornflakes. Cornflakes. Cornflakes. Good on cornflakes. That makes sense. Cornflakes chicken’s a big thing. Wait, what’s the one I thought was Cheez-Its? You thought pretzels was Cheez-Its. Classic pretzels-Cheez-It mix-up. So I mean my top 3 and I think some of the best, Cornflakes number 1, That was both. That makes sense. But then tortilla chips, pretzels. Like you take a good crunchy seasoned thing. Fruity PEBBLES. Yeah, you had Fruity PEBBLES. That’s on you though. You got so many right up there sometimes. Yeah. I know. You take a good crispy thing, you cover chicken with that. You season it well, you fry it. That’s going to be very, very good. I still have love for the classic chicken tender in AP flour. But I mean the blind taste test results, they don’t lie. Like you go to your cornflakes you go to your tortilla chips you go to Fruity PEBBLES if your V. But this is really incredible and this is really enlightening. Man I need 15 diet Cokes. Yeah. I need a flush. I need a Diet Coke enema. The mythical kitchen’s favorite way to obliterate garlic immortalized in t-shirt form. Get the Palm Hill Strike Tee now at mythical.com.