It is in reality a variation on quickly cooking food in batter or pastry and as such it does the same job but with less fat, if you do it right. It’s important, for example, that your meat is only about 6mm (¼”) thick and that your oil is hot enough to quickly brown the breadcrumbs. If you learn to make chicken schnitzel, other meats will be easy.

Start with one chicken breast, remove the tenderloin and slice the remainder horizontally into thirds. If you are not confident about doing this yourself, get the butcher to do it for you. Beat two eggs in a little water and have some seasoned flour handy as well as your breadcrumbs.

Flatten the chicken pieces between plastic wrap using a rolling pin or meat mallet. Then dip them in the flour to coat, shaking off any excess. Soak them in the egg and finally coat them evenly with the breadcrumbs.

Heat some oil in a thick bottomed skillet to the point where breadcrumbs sizzle the instant they are dropped in it. Cook the pieces two at a time for two to three minutes on each side so that the breadcrumbs brown and keep the cooked ones warm in an oven by standing them up on one end. This is an important step and one far too many cooks leave out. It allows the oil to drain out of the schnitzel, reducing the fat content by around 80%.

Once you have the hang of the basics you can spice the dish up a little by adding herbs and/or spices to the crumbing mixture, or using part almond meal cracker crumbs instead of just bread.

photo credit: Seph Swain