The Key to the Best Chicken Fingers Ever

"Aren't chicken fingers basically just fried chicken?" you might ask.

Absolutely not.

The chicken fingers of our childhood were glorious sticks of white breast meat, coated in a dubious, yet totally delicious breading that contained who-knew-what but got fried in oil so it didn't matter. Whether eating them at home with the family or out with a basket of bottomless fries, there was something magical about them. And they were boneless! Dunking pieces of chicken into a heaping pie of bottled ranch dressing without having to worry about biting into something weird.

And then, as with so many foodstuffs of our youth, hindsight comes into play -- they were actually dry, greasy, and made from chicken of questionable origins. But chicken fingers should and definitely could be great, right? There's got to be a way to make boneless, fried pieces of chicken be worth making at home.

Well, chef James Kent of the recently opened The NoMad Bar in NYC has cracked the code.

"It's fried chicken, we're not reinventing anything," says Kent. "It's all about how to we make this the best, the most crispiest, the most delicious." We're completely on board with that mission.

While the dish just landed on The NoMad Bar's brand-new brunch menu, it's a recipe that Kent and Daniel Humm (chef and co-owner of The NoMad and it's sister restaurant Eleven Madison Park) perfected years ago as a Kentucky Derby party showstopper.

The road to chicken finger greatness isn't a long or treacherous one. You can recapture the glory of this childhood dish in just three easy steps.

Check out the slideshow above to learn how to make the best chicken fingers.

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