Remember when I wrote about this awesome cookbook? Well, I’ve finally gotten around to making my first recipe! I didn’t follow the recipe to a T, mostly because when I was shopping for ingredients I was in a hurry and couldn’t find things I needed (like arugula or fennel for the salad.) I also think this shows how little I know about my grocery stores layout, oops guess I will have to visit it more often.
Though I didn’t make the same salad as the one in the book, I did follow the recipe for the chicken faithfully and think it came out great. The chicken was prepared in a similar fashion to a standard chicken cutlet but with a thick mustard based sauce and panko breadcrumbs (bigger and crunchier than your standard ones.) Aside from a slight frying mishap when oil was splattering all over me and my kitchen, I made the dish with few mishaps. I added in some roasted potatoes and side spring mix salad to make it a full meal.
Though my mustard milanese chicken didn’t look anywhere near as nice as the photos in the cookbook, at least they tasted great. For the recipe and how I fared click through to read more.
Mustard Milanese Chicken from The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook
(I changed mine around just a bit from the original recipe, basically doubling everything to make more.)
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
salt and pepper
1 cup of flour
2 egg whites
4 tbsp Dijon mustard
6 cloves of minced garlic (I added a lot of garlic because I love the taste but 4 would do)
2 teaspoons of dried oregano
2 teaspoons of lemon zest
3 cups of panko breadcrumbs
mix of vegetable oil and olive oil for frying
Here is a picture of my various ingredients arranged and ready to go.
First I sliced my chicken breasts so they were nice and thin, then arranged them on a cutting board and pounded them. The recipe called for putting the chicken between two pieces of plastic wrap and pounding them with a meat pounder (hammer looking contraption.) I’m not sure if the reason was to minimize the splashing that sometimes accompanies pounding meat but I thought this was genius. Seriously couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of that before. I then seasoned them with a generous dose of salt and pepper on both sides.
The egg white, mustard, garlic, oregano and lemon zest are all mixed together to create the mustard base of the chicken (you can see that in the second plate in the photo.)
I dredged each piece in the flour then smothered the mustard sauce all over and applied as many breadcrumbs as would stick to them. The recipe stated that you should wait at least one hour to let the coating set in the fridge.
For me the trickiest part was the frying. In the book, she stated they should be fried in about a 1/2 inch of oil. I’m not sure if my pans are wonky or I just don’t know how to fry well but the oil started shooting out at me so I kind of tossed them on there, yet somehow they turned out ok.
I let them drain on paper towels to try to get as much of the oil off as possible (and then sprinkled a bit more salt and pepper on them) and the end result was a crunchy piece of chicken with a delicious mustardy tang. I would never think to put mustard and chicken together like this but I’m so glad I tried this recipe. For the potatoes, I simply sliced baby tomatoes in half and covered them in the leftover mustard sauce roasting them at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes. I added a spring mix salad to add some greens to the meal and gave myself a nice big pat on the back for yet another cooking success. Can’t wait to try even more recipes from this great book!
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