I’ve hated eating chicken breast since young. For goodness sake, it’s dry compared to chicken thighs, drumsticks or wings, which are easily tender and juicy. So I’m out to prove myself wrong.
Actually, that’s me being dramatic. I do wish to prove that chicken breast can be tender, like what the Westerners boast. But then again, my considerations lie on more the monetary side. Chicken is definitely cheaper than say, beef, veal or mutton, and therefore much less costly to screw up. And for a beginner like me, screwing up is commonplace. In fact screwing up is the only way to learn.
My first attempt at cooking chicken breast: Rolling it in ‘lightly’ salted flour, seasoned with freshly grated black pepper. Outcome: Note the inverted commas. Obviously the flour turned out to be too salty. In this case, it was a blessing that most of the flour didn’t adhere.
My second attempt: Pan frying a whole chicken breast, stuffed with mozzarella. Outcome: Too much mozzarella – it overflowed and burnt. Then it wasn’t salty enough, unlike Parmesan, and didn’t add sufficient flavour to the breast. Also, I thought that maybe the mozzarella, when melted, could make the breast less dry. Wrong. It was dry as crap. As you can tell, this attempt was almost a total flop.
My third attempt: Nestum chicken style (from my sister’s home economics lesson’s recipe). Marinated, then dipped in beaten egg, and finally breaded in Nestum flakes. This time I learnt from my previous attempt, and pounded the pieces of breast to even thickness. The pounding process, performed with the spine of my chef’s knife, was tedious as hell. Outcome: I didn’t expect the flakes so absorb so much oil, so the pan was becoming dry by the second. Then again, the flakes didn’t adhere, and when coupled with the lack of fat, the pan became a mess of burnt flakes. And it was far from being tender.
My fourth attempt, which I conducted today, will be the highlight of this post.
Inspiration for this attempt was drawn from the “Chicken Breasts with Parmesan” of “The Escoffier Cookbook”: Season the supremes (chicken breasts); dip them in beaten egg and roll them in grated Parmesan cheese. Saute them in butter, and place them on croutons of polenta (this part I skipped), shaped somewhat like the supremes and browned in clarified butter. When about to serve, sprinkle the supremes with nut-brown butter (I skipped this part too, because the decision to cook this dish was made in the morning).
Given his vague instructions, I decided one egg was enough, and that freshly grated Parmesan cheese was the way to go. Also, I decided to use a heavy soup ladle, instead of my chef’s knife, to pound the breast. I was done in around 5 minutes, with the pieces of even thickness at around 1/2 inch. This is my mise-en-place:

I first sprinkled some salt on both sides of the chicken breasts, then dipped them in beaten egg, after which I rolled them in the Parmesan, as instructed. Instead of butter, I used clarified butter. I used around 2-3 teaspoons of it just in case the Parmesan absorbed oil. It filled the whole pan to a depth of around 2mm, so I was safe in that aspect. When everything was sufficiently hot, I placed the breasts carefully in the pan, cooking both sides for 3 minutes each.
But not everything was going well. The first thing I noticed was that the chicken stuck to the bottom of the pan. That meant that when I tried to flip the pieces, the Parmesan got stuck at the bottom of the pan. In the end, most of the Parmesan failed to adhere. Instead, I was left with nice and white pieces of tender chicken breasts. In fact, they were more tender than I’d imagine. Very tender. This was the texture I was looking for. But the Parmesan was mostly gone:

So why did the Parmesan all fall off?
1. The chicken breasts were wet before the breading process. Actually, I did make sure they were extremely dry, but that was before salting the breasts. I suspect the salt drew out some moisture, which caused difficulty in adhesion.
2. I didn’t flour the chicken breast before dipping it in beaten egg. I read about some advice (online and from Escoffier himself) that flour helps the breading mixture to adhere better. But in this attempt, I decided against it, so as to be as close to Escoffier’s instructions as possible. Big mistake.
3. I beat the egg too vigorously, which caused it to have many bubbles, which then again hurts the breading mixture’s ability to adhere. I’m not really sure about this, but I’ll try not to beat so hard next time.
4. Maybe the pan was not hot enough? I have doubts about this, as the pan was really quite hot, but then again, I won’t reject this piece of advice.
So that’s all folks! The pan fried chicken breast has achieved the tenderness I was looking for, so I’ll work on my breading technique next time. I may want to try poaching though, but I’m running out of stock D: