In a bowl, combine the mayonnaise, ketchup, Dijon mustard, grated garlic, oyster or porcini mushroom powder, sriracha, and Worcestershire sauce. Mix until completely smooth. Refrigerate while the chicken fries are prepared. The sauce should be thick, creamy, lightly spicy, and savoury. If it tastes flat, add a small pinch of salt or a few extra drops of Worcestershire. The mushroom powder here is a quiet but meaningful addition — it contributes umami depth that rounds out the sauce's flavour in a way that's felt more than directly tasted, similar to how instant coffee works in a spice rub without ever reading as coffee.

Slice the chicken breast into long thin strips, about 1 x 1cm thick. Keep them as even as possible so they cook at the same speed. Season the chicken with fine sea salt, garlic powder, onion powder, smoked paprika, and white or black pepper. Toss until evenly coated. These should be actual sliced chicken strips, not ground chicken. If the pieces are too thick, the coating will darken before the center cooks. If they are too thin, they dry out fast. This specific, narrow thickness target exists because chicken fries fry for a genuinely short time — there's very little margin for a piece being noticeably thicker or thinner than the rest, since that difference translates directly into uneven doneness across the batch.

In one shallow dish, combine the flour, cornstarch, garlic powder, onion powder, smoked paprika, salt, and black pepper. In a second dish, whisk the eggs with milk or water and hot sauce if using. In a third dish, combine the lightly crushed panko, fine breadcrumbs, salt, and smoked paprika. Lightly crushing the panko matters. Whole panko flakes can be too large for thin chicken fries and fall off unevenly. The mix of fine breadcrumbs and crushed panko gives a better craggy crust. Whole panko flakes are sized for a larger surface, like a full cutlet — on a thin strip, those same large flakes have less surface to grip and tend to shed, while crushed panko combined with fine breadcrumbs distributes more evenly across the narrower shape.

Coat each chicken strip first in the spiced flour, shaking off excess. Dip into the egg wash, letting excess drip off. Transfer to the breadcrumb-panko mixture and press firmly so the coating sticks all over. Arrange the breaded chicken fries on a tray or wire rack. Let them rest for 10 minutes before frying. The coating should look dry and fully attached, not patchy or wet. The short rest helps the crust hydrate and cling so it does not blow off in the oil. This three-stage breading works because each layer gives the next something to grip — the flour gives the wet egg a surface to cling to, and that egg layer is what the breadcrumb mixture ultimately adheres to.

Heat neutral oil in a deep pot to 175°C. Fry the chicken fries in batches for 2–4 minutes, depending on thickness, until golden-brown, crisp, and cooked through. Do not overcrowd the oil. The chicken is done when the coating is deeply golden and the internal temperature reaches 74°C. Pull them as soon as the crust is golden and the chicken is cooked. These strips are thin — overcooking them is easy, and dry chicken fries are garbage. Given how thin these strips are, the window between properly cooked and overdone is genuinely narrow — a thermometer check on one or two pieces per batch is worth the extra few seconds it takes, since visual colour alone can be misleading at this small scale.

Transfer the fried chicken fries to a wire rack. Season very lightly with fine sea salt while hot if needed. Serve immediately with the dipping sauce on the side. Salting immediately while the coating is still hot and glistening with oil is what allows the seasoning to actually adhere — strips left to cool first won't hold that finishing salt nearly as well.