Marinated Chicken Tender Cutlet 鳥のささみのカツレツ

We like chicken “sasa-mi” 笹身*  tenders and made quite a few dishes and posted them in the past. One of the problems with chicken tenders is that they tend to get dry when cooked. The best way is to make sous vide skin-on, bone-in chicken breast , then remove the tenders from the breast after cooking. This will provide succulent and chicken tenders. I serve these tenders by teasing them into small strands by hand and usually dressing them in sesame dressing. But only one tender can be had per chicken breast half. Other ways of cooking including Yakitori 焼き鳥 works well but over cooking happens if you are not careful. Japanese will serve undercooked (on purpose) or even “raw” chicken tenders but it is not safe to do so here. In any case, I came up with marinading the tenders in ponzu and mirin mixture (hoping the acidity of ponzu may further tenderize and keep them moist and the sweetness of the mirin mitigates the sour taste of the ponzu). I marinate them at least a couple of hours before breading and deep frying them (Chicken tender cutlet). The night I made these chicken tenders they had been marinating over night. Since I had hot oil when I cook them this way, I also fried some arancini I had made some time ago from left-over mushroom risotto. (I shaped the risotto into balls with cubes of Mozzarella cheese in the middle then breaded and froze them. I discovered you can deep fry frozen arancini and they come out really nice.) I served this with fried “renkon” 蓮根  lotus root marinated in X4 Japanese noodle sauce and then dusted with flour. I also served spicy tofu cubes (previously cooked and just heated up before serving in the toaster oven) (pictures #1). 

*Chicken tenders are called “sasa-mi 笹身” in Japanese. “Sasa” is a type of smaller bamboo plant (broad-leaf bamboo) and the shape of its leaves are similar to that of chicken tenders. “mi 身” means “meat”.

The chicken tender cutlets were indeed very nice. The tenders came from Whole Foods. We usually do not buy chicken from Whole Foods but these tenders are one of the best we can have. The round item shown on the left in the picture is the arancini cut in half (you can just see the melted mozzarella in it). The center item is the chicken tender cutlet and beside that on the right is renkon (picture #2).

Ingredients:
One package (1.5lb) chicken tenders

Marinade*
2 tbs Ponzu shoyu
2 tbs Mirin

(*Addendum 12/11/24: Now I use a new marinade which makes the chicken really tender and moist.)
2 tbs mayonnaise
1 tbs soy sauce (or x4 concentrated Japanese noodle sauce which also adds a bit of sweetness and dashi-based umami)

Flour, egg water and panko for breading
Peanut oil for frying

Directions:
In a quarter gallon Ziploc bag add the ponzu and mirin, and the chicken.
Knead to spread the marinade and remove the air as much as you can and let it marinade at least few hours or overnight in the refrigerator

Remove the chicken leaving the marinade.
Bread it with the flour, egg water and Panko bread
In 180F oil, fry for 3-4 minutes turning until crust is golden brown and the center of the thickest part is opeque.

This was quite a meal. The tenders, arancini, and fried renkon were really good. Plenty of crunch with different profiles of flavors. (My wife really likes chicken tender cutlets made this way). The left-overs warm up perfectly in the toaster oven.