Sometimes, I’ll often wonder what lead me to this moment. Why on God’s green Earth did I decide to do this to myself, and what lead me to this specific point in my life. Better question: what could I have done to change my situation, so I won’t have to partake in this activity?
These were the thoughts running through my head when I decided that I must have the Air Heads Chicken Sandwich.
Learning About the Air Heads Chicken Sandwich
Now, this was a special chicken sandwich that was being released at the Frances’ Deli & Brunchery in Chicago for a limited time to commemorate National Fried Chicken Day. Unfortunately, I was unable to go to Chicago during that time… So, I decided that I needed to at least try to replicate the sandwich to the best of my ability with the only information I knew about it.
Which proved to be a struggle in itself. From what I could gather, the main ingredients were a chicken patty, Air Heads Extremes bun, coleslaw, pickles, and spicy mayo.
Gathering the Ingredients
All of these ingredients are pretty easy to acquire… The only exception being the Air Heads Extremes buns. Originally, I wanted to get regular-sized Air Heads Extremes and try and form a lattice structure so that they could hold the patty and extra ingredients. However, since my local grocery stores didn’t have any regular-sized Air Heads Extremes, I had to improvise a bit.
What the grocery store did have were Air Heads Extreme Minis, so I grabbed a small bag of those and six regular Air Heads for good measure.
Creation Strategies
You see, I was going to try and melt the regular Air Heads and use that as the base to hold the Air Heads Extremes together. This plan… Didn’t end up working out.
This was a stupid plan. I don't know why I thought it would work.
The next strategy that I tried to implement was just impressing the Air Heads Extremes to each other. I was just hoping that the natural stickiness would be enough to adhere the candies to each other… However, in the end, it wasn’t enough to keep everything together.
The plan that ended up working (thanks to Daniel P. for helping me out with this one) was to roll the original Air Heads into a thin strip that could be used as an adhesive between the two candies. And after about 20 minutes, I had two “functional” (albeit horrendous looking) buns that could be used to house the patty and other fillings.
The more I look at this creation, the more I hate it.
In the end, I used a chicken patty from Costco, coleslaw from Safeway, Dave’s Signature Pickle (my favorite pickles as of this post), and Siracha (as my house was curiously without any mayo on that day).
While the chicken was cooking, I did add a few more pieces of Air Heads Extremes on top while it was cooking for good measure, but I don’t think they really added anything to the final product.
A Result...
After combining all the ingredients, I ended up with a scuffed Air Heads Chicken Sandwich… At least I can say that I tried my best. All that was left to do was taste all the ingredients together…
Combination process... Dislike.
And the result was… A disgusting amalgamation of bad choices and regret that I thought only came from drinking copious amounts of alcohol.
Taste Test
I cannot stress this enough: DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. Now, I’m not sure if this is how Frances’ Deli & Brunchery made their chicken sandwich (I assume that they had much higher quality of ingredients and went through QC from Air Heads central), but even when I saw the image, I was shocked that they were attempting to do this.
All the ingredients, except for the buns, are working together to create this savory mixture that is a staple in any premium chicken sandwich. Each ingredient works together and accentuates each other in ways that create a beautiful symphony in your mouth. But if we are comparing this sandwich to a professional orchestra, the buns can be attributed to the dissonant sounds of a middle school French Horn player (If you ever played in a middle school band, you know exactly what I’m talking about).
The look of pure astonishment at what I'm doing.
The texture is also incredibly uncomfortable and negatively impacts the mouthfeel of the product. The gummy texture disturbs the combination and sticks to the interior of your mouth which creates a dam that makes the other ingredients more difficult to swallow. I was sincerely afraid that I was going to choke. But I guess the good news would be that I would have a bomb epitaph.
Final Rating
2/10
In the end, I was left with a candy I don’t like, a tub of coleslaw that I don’t eat, and a sick stomach by the next morning. I can’t really fathom why anyone would submit themselves to this culinary torture.
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