Chicken Milanese

June 11 - As a big fan of anything involving cheese, I was immediately attracted to both the parmesan crusting of today’s chicken recipe, and the caprese-like side salad that accompanied it. The salad was the first order of business in the cooking process, starting with making a basil oil. This was super simple, and I’m excited to make it more in the future. All it takes is equal parts basil and olive oil, a garlic clove and some salt. Despite its simplicity, it tasted amazing on not only the salad, but chicken and bread as well, so I’m guessing it could be good on just about anything.

Once it was ready, all it took was to cut up some tomatoes and chunks of mozzarella and toss them together with the oil. We were planning to use cherry tomatoes, but since the ones we had were not looking so good, Roma tomato chunks had to do. It was still very good, but cherry or grape tomatoes (if you have them) definitely would be better to add sweetness.

Leaving the salad to sit, we started on the chicken, first by laying out flour, beaten eggs, and panko breadcrumbs mixed with parmesan, which were then used to coat the chicken prior to frying. Moving onto the frying pan, the recipe says about 3 minutes on each side for the chicken to be finished. Our pieces were a bit thicker than the recipe called for, so instead I looked out for golden brown color and an internal temp of about 165F. If you’re someone who is terrified of undercooked chicken (like me), a cooking thermometer is a must for a recipe like this.

Once cooked, the chicken was served alongside the salad, both covered generously in the delightful basil oil. Additionally, we completed the meal with fresh multigrain bread, coated in a delicious, salty butter from Pecorino that we’re all obsessed with (Seriously go there, it’s amazing!!). It might’ve helped that it we ate outside on a beautiful day, but I really loved this meal, and think it might be my favorite so far. It’s a really easy, tasty, and filling meal, perfect for a nice weeknight dinner. I’ll definitely be making it again, even taking parts of it for other meals, especially the basil oil which I’ll now put on anything and everything.