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| Wednesday, June 17, 2009 11:57 AM |
| Just Call Me... Poultry Puncher |
 by Fëanor |
Last night, I made chicken schnitzel and poppy made a salad and dressing, all based on this recipe. We left out some of the ingredients the recipe calls for, but we were mostly faithful to it. Turns out chicken schnitzel is just fried chicken, but beaten savagely first. We had no mallet with which to perform this beating, but we thought a rolling pin would serve. However, after a thorough search upstairs and down, I couldn't find our rolling pin anywhere. I tried hitting the chicken with a spatula for a while, but it just didn't have the heft I needed. So then I thought, why don't I just punch it? With my fists?? And that's what I proceeded to do. (Don't worry, the chicken was covered with plastic wrap.) It worked pretty well, too! I beat the crap out of that chicken. Next the chicken got seasoned thoroughly with salt and pepper, then dredged, first in flour mixed with a pinch of cayenne, then eggs, and finally unseasoned bread crumbs. Then it went into a hot pan filled with a mixture of vegetable and olive oils and got fried for 2-3 minutes on each side. After it came out, it was salted again. It was way tasty! Especially when eaten along with the salad.
Things I'd do differently next time: use bigger, shallower containers to hold the flour, eggs, and bread crumbs. I used regular-sized bowls, and the large, flattened out pieces of chicken simply didn't fit in them, which meant I had to kind of hold them up over the bowls and slap the stuff on them. Awkward and messy. Also, I decided to dredge the chicken one piece at a time and then put it directly into the oil so I didn't have to use yet another dish to set the dredged chicken on, but this meant the oil just sat there burning between each cooking session while I dredged the next piece. Next time I'd dredge them all first, setting them on that extra dish afterwards and then doing the cooking all in one go. I'd probably also turn the heat down a bit, or perhaps punch the chicken for longer. The breading got dark quickly, but some of the thicker parts of the chicken ended up just slightly pink inside.
Another thing we'll have to do next time: put the vent on to clear out the smoke while cooking, and then burn incense and take showers directly after! Everything in the house still smells like fried chicken. |
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