We are always looking for ways to make our complicated lives a little easier. We wake up at four in the morning and inevitably start composing lists of chores to perform and bills to pay and wonder what the peckish cats will eat this week. I always think about what we will have for dinner. It would be much easier, Gentle Readers, if I actually planned a week’s menu over the weekend, and did one big, efficient grocery shop. But, no, I procrastinate and dawdle and hope that things will take care of themselves. Invariably, twelve hours later, at four o’clock most afternoons, you will find me behind the wheel of the Mom-mobile, on my way to the grocery store. The clerks are my new best friends. (What they think of the vast quantities of wine I’ll never know…)
Thus, three weeks into the New Year, I am making a new resolution – cook once, serve at least twice. One solution would be to listen to the experts who assert that one chicken roasted on Sunday can pretty much see a family of four through an entire week. (This is when I delicately cough, roll my eyes, and point towards The Tall One, whose appetite could compete with Henry the Eighth’s. Even Tom Jones could tear through a chicken in one meal.)
Double Duty Chicken is also something you can make ahead of the Ravens game this weekend. Fry up a batch of these on Saturday, and reheat for half time on Sunday. Go Ravens!
1 pound boneless chicken breast, or chicken scallopine, cut into strips
1 ½ cups Panko bread crumbs
1 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
½ cup flour
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon Lawry’s Seasoning Salt (do not deviate and use another brand)
2 eggs
Salt and pepper
Corn oil for frying
Double Duty Chicken is very simple.
Salt and pepper the chicken strips.
Whisk the eggs in a shallow bowl or pie pan.
In another shallow bowl mix the Panko bread crumbs and the Parmesan cheese.
Dredge the chicken in the flour.
Then coat the chicken in the eggs.
Drop the chicken slices one by one into the Panko and Parmesan mixture and put on another plate.
I use about an inch of corn oil in a well-seasoned old cast iron frying pan. Heat the oil and then cook the chicken to desired degree of golden brown delight. It’s messy, but aromatic, and delish. The good intention here is that there will be enough strips left over for lunch boxes tomorrow or even another dinner. One hopes the cook does not test too many samples…
Our friends at Food52 have quite a few good ideas about frying chicken.
http://food52.com/recipes/6945_bff_crispy_coated_chicken
And the cover story for Bon Appétit this month is “The Best Fried Chicken Ever!”http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/perfect-fried-chicken
“Ever consider what pets must think of us? I mean, here we come back from a grocery store with the most amazing haul – chicken, pork, half a cow. They must think we’re the greatest hunters on earth! “
-Anne Tyler