In honour of KFC’s horrific Double Down sandwich setting some kind of sales record in its first two weeks in Canada, I have decided the sandwich is ripe for miniaturization. If you haven’t heard about the Double Down, it’s bacon, cheese and “special” sauce sandwiched between two “buns,” which are actually just boneless breaded fried chicken. Monstrous.

If you’ve never fried chicken before, there are a few tricks. First, use a high-walled pan or a pot. Fill it with 2 to 3 cm of vegetable oil. It will bubble up when you put the chicken in, so make sure your pan is deep enough that the oil isn’t more than halfway up the sides. Second, keep your wet and dry hands separate.

Ingredients:

• 1 boneless, skinless chicken breast
• 2 strips of bacon (rashers as my great grandmother used to call them)
• smoked gouda
• fancy mustard
• mayonnaise
• 1tbsp garlic salt
• 1tsp paprika
• 1tsp pepper
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup flour

First, get your oil going. You’re looking for a temperature around 350ºF.

Meanwhile, mix the spices in a bowl. This was kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing, so my spices were a bit random. In future, I’d probably use garlic powder instead of garlic salt, and then add a bit of salt to the mix, but not as much. In another bowl, beat the egg with a splash of water. In a third-and-final bowl, pour the flour.

Cut up the chicken breast. Since you’re making a sandwich out of this, you want thin flat pieces, so cut the breast by placing it flat on the cutting board and running your knife parallel to the board. You should then be able to get 6 pieces out of a normal chicken breast. I wound up with two squares, two nice, squat triangles and two long triangles.

Do the chicken pieces one-at-a-time. Toss one chicken piece in the spices, then move it to the egg with your wet hand. Make sure the egg coats the piece thoroughly. Then, toss it in the flour and shake the bowl all around to get it good and coated. Using your dry hand, pick the now floured chicken piece up and drag it around a bit and make sure it’s good and coated. Then, into the oil. Do this for as many pieces as will fit in the pan. Don’t over crowd the pan, keeping the temperature high is important.

After about 3 minutes, flip the pieces. The bottoms should be a nice golden brown and look suspiciously like KFC. Cook for another 3ish minutes, or until the other side is golden brown. Remove to a rack over a pan or plate to catch the grease that will drip off. Now, coat and fry the remaining pieces.

As your chicken is frying, cook up your bacon. We happened to have 2 pieces saved up so we just popped ’em in the microwave. Cut each slice into 3 pieces. Also, slice your cheese.

Mix about 2 parts mayo to 1 part mustard (ours was Kozlik’s honey garlic) to make your special sauce. Pair up your chicken pieces so that the pieces that are the closest in shape and size are together. Place 2 bacon bits and 1 slice of cheese on one “bun” and your special sauce on the other. Sandwich. Enjoy.

My only regret is that we didn’t have tiny bottles of Coke to go with them – it would have gone perfectly with the salty, fatty, tiny goodness.