Chicken Cutlet Recipe

I want to tell you about a technique I taught myself this week, because the technique has changed what I think the word cutlet means and because the technique came out of me trying to figure out how to make a fifteen-year-old’s grocery budget feel like a restaurant menu.

The technique is pounding chicken thighs into cutlets. I copied the recipe out of a Couple Cooks article in a magazine I borrowed from Mrs. Tilford last week when I dropped off a plate of biscuits, and the recipe assumed that I knew, going in, what a chicken cutlet was. I did not. I had eaten chicken cutlets at a sit-down restaurant once, with Aunt Tammy, when I was twelve, and the cutlets had cost twelve dollars and had been the size of dinner plates. I did not know how a piece of chicken got to be the size of a dinner plate. I did not know what made a cutlet a cutlet instead of a piece of chicken.

The library at Broken Arrow High closes for the summer, but the public branch on Albany is open until eight and has free Wi-Fi, and on Tuesday afternoon between my morning shift and dinner I biked over there and sat at one of the back tables with my notebook and I watched two YouTube videos on how to debone a chicken thigh and turn it into a cutlet. The first video was a French chef named Eric who used a boning knife and made it look easy, the way French chefs always do. The second was a woman named Amber from Tennessee in a cluttered kitchen who used a regular paring knife and a heavy coffee mug and made it look slow but doable. Amber’s video is the one I followed.

The trick, per Amber, is this. You buy chicken thighs on the bone, skin-on, $1.99 a pound on the markdown rack at Walmart. You take each thigh and you slide a paring knife along the bone, working it free, and you pull the bone out in one piece. (My first thigh took me eight minutes. The fourth one took me ninety seconds. The hand learns.) You leave the skin on or you take it off, your call — I left it on for crispness. Then you put the boneless thigh between two sheets of plastic wrap, and you take a heavy coffee mug, and you pound the thigh from the center outward until it is about a half-inch thick all the way across. The thigh, which started as a knobby little egg-shape, turns into a flat round disk roughly the size of your hand. That disk is the cutlet.

What I want to put down for the record is that the cutlet is a different food than the thigh. The cutlet cooks in four minutes total. The cutlet has the same surface area as a chicken breast but more flavor, because thigh meat is fattier and tastier than breast meat. The cutlet feels, when you bite into it, like it costs eight or nine dollars at a restaurant. The cutlet, on my budget, costs me about ninety cents.

I made cutlets Wednesday night. I dredged each one in flour mixed with salt and pepper. I heated two tablespoons of oil in the cast-iron skillet over medium-high. I cooked the cutlets two minutes per side, until the flour crust was golden and crisp and the chicken was cooked through. I plated them over rice. I drizzled the lemon-tahini sauce over the top — this is the part I want to be honest about, the lemon-tahini sauce came from a small jar Aunt Tammy gave us at Christmas as part of a gift basket, and we have been working through it slowly because nobody in this house knew what to do with it for six months, and the cutlet is the thing that finally cracked it. The sauce on the cutlet over the rice tasted like the kind of dinner Aunt Tammy probably eats every Tuesday.

Mama came home at eight-fifteen. She sat down. She looked at her plate. She said, Kaylee, this looks like a chicken parmesan but without the parmesan. I said, that’s about right, Mama. She ate. She did not say much else but I could see by the second bite that her face had relaxed in the way it does when she is being fed something she has not had to think about cooking herself.

And Cody. Cody was at the table for the eleventh night in a row. I want to write that on the page in pen because I have been writing it in pencil all week and I am ready to graduate it. Eleven nights. Eleven dinners with my brother across the table from me, in a clean shirt, with his eyes clear, eating real food. He has been showing up at the Sonic on Wednesday afternoons at seven forty-five, fifteen minutes before my shift ends, and waiting on the curb outside, and walking me home. This Wednesday and last Wednesday. Two Wednesdays is the start of a habit. Three Wednesdays is a habit. I am writing this on Thursday and I am being careful not to plan for next Wednesday because planning out loud feels like a jinx.

He ate two cutlets at dinner Wednesday night. Two cutlets and a pile of rice and a glass of milk. He chewed slowly, the way he does when he is paying attention to the food. When he finished he pushed his plate forward an inch on the table and he said, this is real good, Kay. Six words. Two-and-three-word increments. All of them at the kitchen table. The cumulative word count from my brother since the Sunday pancakes is starting to add up to a person again, and I am writing that here so I do not pretend to myself that it is not happening. It is happening. He is coming back. Slowly, one cutlet and one walk-home and one Wednesday at a time. And I am going to keep cooking.

School starts in three weeks. The Walmart back-to-school aisle has been up since the last week of June, which is predatory but also gives me time to plan. I want one new shirt, one new notebook, and a pair of jeans. I have eighty-six dollars in the wallet from this week’s tips and pay. I am going to make it work.

The recipe and technique are below, the way A Couple Cooks wrote them. The pounding part is the part that turns this from a recipe into a skill. Buy thighs on the markdown rack. Watch a video on YouTube if you have never deboned a thigh before. Pound the thighs between plastic wrap. Dredge. Pan-fry. Sauce. The whole dinner is twenty minutes and ninety cents a serving and tastes like an eight-dollar plate at a restaurant. That is the math I am still in love with. That is the math I am writing this notebook for.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 15 min | Total Time: 30 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 6 oz each)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons water
1 cup plain breadcrumbs
1/2 cup vegetable oil, for frying
Lemon wedges and fresh parsley, for serving (optional)

Instructions

Pound the chicken. Place each chicken breast between two sheets of plastic wrap or in a zip-top bag. Using a meat mallet or rolling pin, pound to an even 1/4-inch thickness. This ensures fast, even cooking and tender results.
Set up a dredging station. In a shallow bowl, whisk together the flour, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, salt, and pepper. In a second bowl, beat the eggs with 2 tablespoons of water. Place the breadcrumbs in a third bowl.
Coat the cutlets. Working one piece at a time, dredge a chicken cutlet in the seasoned flour, pressing so it adheres. Dip it in the egg wash, letting any excess drip off. Press it firmly into the breadcrumbs on both sides. Set on a wire rack or plate. Let the coated cutlets rest for 5—10 minutes before frying — this is the step that keeps the breading from falling off.
Heat the oil. Pour the vegetable oil into a large heavy skillet (cast iron works great) and heat over medium-high until shimmering — about 350°F. The oil should be about 1/4 inch deep.
Fry the cutlets. Working in batches so you don’t crowd the pan, fry each cutlet for 3—4 minutes per side until deep golden brown and cooked through (internal temperature of 165°F). Adjust heat as needed to keep a steady sizzle without burning.
Drain and rest. Transfer finished cutlets to a wire rack set over a baking sheet or a plate lined with paper towels. Let them rest for 2—3 minutes before serving.
Serve. Plate the cutlets with mashed potatoes, a canned or steamed vegetable, and a drizzle of white gravy if you have it. A squeeze of lemon brightens everything up.

Nutrition (per serving)

Chicken Cutlet Recipe — The Markdown-Rack Technique That Made My Brother Say Six Words