An Incredibly Crowd-Pleasing Recipe

Pickle Salt Chicken Tenders with Dilljonaise

THE CUKES ARE OPTIONAL. THE PICKLE SALT ISN’T.

This week, I’m suggesting you place an order for an ingredient that you probably don’t already have but that I’ll be plugging hard: PICKLE SALT. Throw “game changer” into thesaurus.com and all of the suggested synonyms will apply to this condiment. 

I am also asking you to (shallow) fry at home, which I insist is not a huge deal.

Dealbreaker? Ok, ok. Here’s my archive of recipes to explore instead. 

On to chicken tenders that taste pleasantly of pickles:

Polarizing things: Orange marmalade, bell peppers, the crop top trend, living in cold weather, cats.

Non-polarizing things: Vacations, hummingbirds, warm baguettes, puppies. And pickles. 

ANOTHER NON-POLARIZING THING

I’ll say it: EVERYONE LOVES A PICKLE. Feel free to fight back on that, but all the bones in my bod believe this statement to be true.

What’s my point? With not a single crop top-wearing cat lover in sight, there’ll be no debate that this recipe will deliver. And… craziest thing! Upon serving, puppies and hummingbirds arrive in droves.  

Happy Accidents: The Classic Gateway to New Recipes

My girlfriend doesn’t know how to cook. Poor thing bought herself a package of chicken tenders when I was away last week. “To poach,” she explained with as much valiance as one could have who failed at a self-assigned task. The effort (and ultimately, the package of raw chicken that awaited me on the evening of my return) was cute and commendable. You heard it here first: packages of raw chicken are cute! And commendable!

With the sell-by date fast approaching and a craving to poach poultry totally nonexistent, I was left with no choice but to make some martinis. Thanks to Tito’s, inspiration struck. 

Maybe it was the salty/briny/cravable qualities of the concoction in my glass, but the path forward became very clear once I remembered the at-the-ready pickle salt I always keep stocked for popcorn. Sure enough, seasoning the tenders through and through with the pickle salt felt as natural as shaking up a second cocktail.

Let’s Get Tender

The phenomenon of the chicken tender is its interior juiciness, overwhelmingly un-breast like. “Chicken breast” is the street name for the pectoralis major, the larger part of the muscle on the bird’s chest. A “chicken tender” (short for tenderloin— think pork or steak) is the pectoralis minor muscle, located directly beneath the breast.

And the paradox: why does a plain ol’ chicken breast pale in the juicy department by comparison to the chicken tender, merely a smaller muscle that’s just a touch south? Perhaps better explained more anatomically by someone in a lab coat, but— if using logic applicable to other proteins— I’d imagine that this is because that small strip of tender is used by the chicken even less frequently than the larger breast muscle (which frankly isn’t used all that much compared to the legs), rendering it more, well… tender.

Let’s Get Salty

You’ll likely have to order the pickle salt seasoning online. I like this brand a lot, from Wabash Valley Farms, made in Monon, Indiana, known as the “heart of popcorn country!” Personally, I think that fact deserves another couple of !!’s. Wabash is also the same company that patented the very first model of the Whirly-Pop stovetop popcorn popper, which I devotedly use when making a batch of my annual spicy kettle corn (coming soon to a NOODLE near you). Using that old school popper is truly the only instrument capable of executing this unexpectedly finicky style of popcorn properly.

NOODLE’S FIRST SALT SELFIE

One of the main ingredients in pickle salt is vinegar powder, another one of my favorite flavoring agents, with its ability to add pucker and punch to whatever falls beneath its dust. When mixed with the dried dill and pickling spices, salivary glands activate immediately, as if in deference to the pickle salt’s reigning skill to force salivation. 

Don’t have tenders? Cut chicken breasts lengthwise into strips. Don’t have lemons? Use limes. Don’t have the pickle salt? Don’t make this recipe. (Until you procure some.)

SPRINKLE, SPRINKLE, and SPRINKLE SOME MORE

Here’s where I micromanage how you eat: #1: I love serving these with cold cukes or a vinegary salad. Crunch on crunch! Follow the recipe, of course, but please don’t forget to #2: generously dust both sides of the tenders with pickle salt while still hot and #3: squeeze lemons with gusto over the tenders before serving. And continue seasoning with the pickle salt while eating. Adding brightness to brightness is part of the magic of this recipe.

SEASON AND SQUEEZE

P.S.: Over at Thesaurus.com, “game changer” isn’t a recognizable word or phrase. Clearly the editors have never tasted pickle salt.

PICKLE SALT CHICKEN TENDERS WITH DILLJONAISE 

Serves 4