Hot Honey Chicken Tenders

Ingredients

• 400 g chicken mini fillets
• 3 tbsp plain flour
• 1 egg, beaten
• 80 g panko breadcrumbs
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 3 tbsp honey
• 1 tbsp sriracha
• ½ tsp chilli flakes
• 20 g butter
• 1 lemon, zest and juice
• Fine salt and black pepper
• 100 g coleslaw made with cabbage, carrot and a lightly dressed mayonnaise
• 10 g flat-leaf parsley, chopped

Method

1. Heat the oven to 220°C fan and slide a baking tray in to get hot; a preheated tray is what stops the bottoms going soggy. Pat the chicken fillets dry with kitchen paper. Season them generously with salt and pepper on both sides.
2. Mix the flour with the garlic powder, smoked paprika, a good pinch of salt and a grind of pepper in a shallow bowl. Toasting the spices into the hot oil happens later in the dredge. Tip back into the bowl. Beat the egg in a second bowl, and tip the panko into a third.
3. Dredge each tender through the seasoned flour, then the egg, then press firmly into the panko so every surface is thickly coated. Press, don't dust; loose crumbs fall off in the oven.
4. Pull the hot tray out, slick it with the vegetable oil, and lay the tenders down with a clear gap between each one. Don't crowd them; touching tenders steam each other and you lose the crisp edges. Drizzle the tops generously with more oil; this is what lacquers the panko into a shattering crust. Bake for 16–18 minutes, flipping once at the halfway mark, until deeply golden and cooked through to 75°C for 30 seconds in the thickest piece.
5. While they bake, build the hot honey. Melt the butter in a small saucepan over a low heat until it's just foaming; don't let it brown or the honey will taste scorched. Stir in the honey, sriracha and chilli flakes and let it simmer gently for about a minute, until glossy and bubbling at the edges. The garlic powder in the crust is doing the savoury work here, so this glaze stays bright and clean; pull it off the heat the moment it thickens, no longer.
6. Taste the glaze. It should ride the line between sweet, hot and salty; a small pinch of salt now ties the honey to the sriracha, and a squeeze of lemon juice cuts through the butter so it lifts rather than coats.
7. Tip the hot tenders into a large bowl and pour over half the hot honey, tossing quickly so every piece is lacquered while the crust is still crackling. Keep the rest warm for dipping; it'll thicken as it sits.
8. Pile the tenders onto plates with a heap of coleslaw and a mountain of fries alongside. Scatter the chopped parsley over the top, tuck the lemon wedges in for squeezing, and put the remaining hot honey on the table in a little pot for dunking.