Crispiest Sesame Chicken Strips at your favorite take-away joint? No ways.

You can make the crispiest Sesame Chicken Strips right there in your own kitchen and it is not hard at all. Yes, I think I finally found the best recipe. The thing that we all love so much about  take-away crispy chicken, is the greasy crunch. The little lumps of crispy skin and crumbs, right?

Well, with this recipe you can have all of that AND the soft white meat on the inside. I like to cut my chicken strips really thin, which means the buttermilk marinade can  tenderize it well to give you the perfect results.

To set up a crumbing station, might seem like a tedious job to you, but trust me, it is really simple.  However, to save myself some time, I always make a double batch of this recipe and freeze half of the strips crumbed, but raw. You can at a later stage, fry them from frozen. With a vegetarian in the house, this crispy sesame coating is perfect for tofu too.

NB – I use store-bought tempura flour that I buy at the Chinese grocer, but you can use half flour and half cornflour for the same crispiness.

Crispiest Sesame Chicken Strips

serves 6

Ingredients

1 kg chicken fillets – cut in thin strips

250 ml buttermilk

10 ml barbecue spice of your choice

500 ml/2 cups tempura flour

5 ml salt

45 ml white sesame seeds

3 eggs

oil for frying

For the chili sauce

125 ml honey

30 ml white vinegar

1 – 2 green chili – finely chopped

3 cm piece ginger – peeled and finely grated

Method

Place the chicken strips, spice and buttermilk in a glass bowl and mix through. Allow to stand for at least 30 minutes, but overnight is also good. When you are ready to make start the crumbing, whisk the eggs in a small bowl and then add the egg mixture to the chicken strips in the buttermilk. Mix through. In a glass bowl, mix the tempura flour, salt and sesame seeds. Get a baking sheet and line with plastic for the crumbed chicken strips.

Take the chicken strips from the buttermilk, dip in the flour mix, making sure there is enough flour mix on each strip. It must be lumpy and un-even, remember, this is what makes it so crispy. Lay the strip on the baking sheet and finish all the other strips. At this stage, you can freeze half the batch on the baking sheet and when they are frozen, put them in ziplock bags.

Heat the oil and when hot, start frying the chicken strips until golden brown. Drain on kitchen toweling and serve as hot as possible.

The make the chili sauce, simply add all the ingredients in a small  pot and heat on stove or in microwave.

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