SOMETHING FRIED
Chicken schnitzel with herb salad and jasmine rice
I love anything crumbed and fried. I also never mind acknowledging where my ideas for recipes come from, so when I liked the look of the chicken katsu recipe in Donna Hay’s book Life in Balance, I decided to do my version. It is basically sliced crumbed chicken served with steamed jasmine rice and a salad with Asian flavours.
Serves 4-6 600g free range or organic chicken breasts, each cut into slices on the diagonal towards the pointed end, each slice lightly beaten out to 1.5cm thick with a meat hammer ½ cup flour, seasoned with salt and pepper 2 eggs, beaten ¼ cup milk 150g panko crumbs (I like the NZ-made FogDog brand as they are additive-free) 4 handfuls (about 120g) baby salad greens
2 spring onions, thinly sliced on the diagonal Small handful each basil mint and coriander sprigs 1 kaffir lime leaf, central stalk discarded, leaf very thinly sliced ½ cup roasted unsalted peanuts, crushed or chopped coarsely ¼ cup Thai sweet chilli sauce 3 Tbsp fresh lime juice 1 Tbsp Japanese soy sauce 1 tsp sesame oil Vegetable oil for frying Lime halves and steamed jasmine rice for serving.
1 Heat the oven to 200C. 2 Dust a chicken slice in the flour. Mix the eggs and milk together and dip the floured chicken in it. Place the chicken slice in the crumbs and firmly pat on each side so the crumbs stick. Repeat for the remaining chicken slices. Place each completed slice on a plate then reserve in the fridge. These are the schnitzels. 3 Put the salad greens, spring onion, herbs, kaffir lime and peanuts in a salad bowl. Reserve. 4 Put the chilli sauce, lime juice, soy sauce and sesame oil in a small bowl and mix well. Reserve. This is the dressing. 5 Heat about ½ cm of oil over moderate heat in a deep frying pan and brown the schnitzel in batches, placing them side by side on a large ovenproof tray as they are browned. Place in the oven for 5 minutes or until completely cooked through. Wipe out the pan and replace the oil if it becomes cluttered with loose crumbs that have burnt. 6 Add the dressing to the baby greens mix and toss well. This is the salad. 7 Serve the schnitzel with lime halves for squeezing and with the salad and steamed jasmine rice on the side.