BeyondPasta

… not your KFC! I can’t stand fast food chains. But probably there is no need for me to say this out loud since I am keeping a cooking blog :) But I don’t always eat 100% healthy food :P

This is my version of fried chicken, a crispy, tasty Italian version. I call it Italian because it is breaded with some rosemary. You can see it here plated with some store bought fries, but it would be good, and healthier, with some roasted potatoes or veggies.

Ingredients

• 2 chicken breasts
• 1/2 cup plain bread crumbs
• 4 short stalks of rosemary
• flour as needed (start with 1/4 cup)
• salt
• 2 eggs
• frying oil

Preparation

Halve the chicken breasts to make them less thick so they will cook faster. Wash and dry them. Remove the stalks from the rosemary and chop the leaves thinly. Mix the chopped rosemary with the bread crumbs and pour on a plate. Pour the flour into another plate. Open the eggs in a large bowl and beat them slightly with a fork. See picture 1.

Salt lightly the chicken, pass it in the flour, pressing it down on both sides to coat it well.

Remove excess flour by shaking the chicken and pass it in the beaten eggs, coating it again.

Lift the chicken over the bowl and let it drip the excess egg for a few seconds. Tongs are very useful for this step!

Now pass the chicken in the mixture of bread crumbs and rosemary: lay the chicken over the bread crumbs to coat the bottom and pour some bread crumbs over the chicken to avoid to remove the egg layer when pressing it down into the crumbs. Picture 2.

You are ready to fry your Italian chicken!

Pour some oil in a pan, I use frying oil. There is no need for a lot of oil, we are not deep frying, we will fry the chicken one side at a time. Turn on the heat and bring to temperature..

I have always been very bad with frying. What I always do wrong is to evaluate the temperature of the oil. Lately I learned how the damn frying thing works and here is my foolproof oil temperature test. To test the temperature of the oil use some bread crumbs, or better some small clusters of egg and crumbs that for sure are left in the plate after you coated the chicken. The oil is at the correct temperature when you let in a bread-egg cluster and little bubbles form on all sides. Do the test by throwing one cluster, if small bubbles all around it appear the oil is ready otherwise wait for a couple of minutes and try again with another small cluster. Do this process until the temperature is right, i.e. the cluster you just threw in has bubbles all over around it!

Gently let the chicken in the pan and fry. Check the doneness by lifting it and peeking the layer facing down in the oil, when it is lightly brown it is ready to be turned. Turn it and cook the other side. It should take 4 to 5 minutes per side.

Remove the chicken from the pan and dry the excess oil by placing it on a plate covered with paper towel and pressing the chicken down on the paper on both sides.

Serve your Italian fried chicken with your favorite side. Enjoy!