Chicken Cutlets
These chicken cutlets are a combination of how my girls' grandmother taught me to make them and a recipe I saw in an Italian cookbook. If you don't have buttermilk, you can use plain yogurt, thinned with a little milk. If you don't have either, you can skip the marinating step. If you don't want to pound the chicken and/or it's partially frozen, slice it thinly into portion sized pieces.
Leftovers make great chicken sandwiches, either buffalo style or plain.
4 Boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 cups buttermilk
1 egg
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp lemon juice
1/2 or more flour
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 tsp dried basil
1/2 tsp dried oregano
oil for frying
Pound the chicken until thin. Soak in buttermilk. Cover and refrigerate a few hours.
I use pie pans for dipping trays, which gives you a big enough flat surface. In one pan beat an egg and mix in a bit of water or milk or soy sauce and lemon juice. Put flour in another pan. Put bread crumbs, cheese, and herbs in a third pan.
Put some olive oil and butter (2 Tbs each) in a big frying pan and heat over medium heat. Line the pie pans up: chicken, flour, egg, bread crumbs. Use two forks and move the chicken from one to the next. Do this right when you're ready to cook. Don't bread things ahead of time. After breading them, set them in the hot oil and cook for a few minutes on each side. You can usually tell they're done when a fork pierces through the chicken easily, but cut one open to make sure until you get a feel for it. If you're cooking a lot, lay them on a cookie sheet and put them in the oven to stay warm until they're all done.
Goes great with angel hair pasta with garlic.
If you end up with leftovers, you can make them into some great sandwiches. Heat the cutlets in the oven a few minutes, then place on a hamburger bun or roll. Top with a slice of mozzarella cheese, a sliced tomato and some lettuce plus the condiments of your choice. Mix up some blue cheese dressing and some hot sauce and you've got a buffalo chicken sandwich! Press it in a Panini grill with some cheese and chutney and roasted red peppers!
Related Articles and Recipes
