Chicken Piccata and Chicken Milanese have always been favorite dishes of mine. Both are relatively light and summery. But I’ve never had much luck making a truly “crispy” chicken filet, and that is the best part about a Milanese dish. So, I had never tried making Milanese until this week. Much to my surprise, I was successful, and the chicken was crispy, crunchy and delightful.
The recipe I was using called for “toasting” Italian breadcrumbs in the oven. This involved tossing a cup and a half of crumbs with around a fourth of a cup of olive oil and then spreading them out on a cookie sheet. I put it in the oven at 425… and forgot about it until the smoke started billowing out from the oven door. Oops! Unfortunately, I didn’t have lots of extra Italian breadcrumbs for the second try, so I had to mix my remaining half cup with around a cup of Japanese Panko breadcrumbs (this was going to be a Japanese-Italian hybrid Milanese!). I began the toasting process again…
Meanwhile, I mixed pounded out chicken fillets to about half-inch thickness, using my meat tenderizer. Then, I dredged them in flour before dipping in egg. And the final step was coating them in the toasted breadcrumb mixture.
Instead of baking the chicken directly on a cookie sheet, as I have done in the past, I put a small wire rack on top of the sheet to hold the chicken. I think this proved to be the secret in producing a crispy, baked fillet. After about 12-15 minutes, I pulled the sheet out of the oven and the golden brown breasts looked amazing.
To top it off, I tossed a little spring mix with lemon juice, olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic powder. This lent a perfect tart and saltiness to the crunchy chicken.
