More on kid food: chicken cutlets

In thinking about the whole "issue" of cooking things that kids like, I realized something that I think we all have to admit: GROWNUPS like kid food too. 'Fess up. You go to the zoo, you get the "kids" a big bag of caramel popcorn. Who eats most? You'd turn down french fries. "Oh, I have to finish them because otherwise, we'd have to throw them out." Uh huh. I think the only difference, ultimately, between what kids eat and what we eat, is guilt. Kids have no guilt about what they eat. We do. And part of it, I think, is because we feel that as "grownups" we should be eating something more sophisticated, fancier, more, well, "adult."

GET OVER IT. Last weekend, when I was preparing the dinner for Becky, I was making her a chicken cutlet. (You love them, admit it). But you can't buy ONE chicken cutlet. I had the "economical three pound package," and there were about eight of them in there. I cooked them all. And then we ate them during the week. On sandwiches. With lettuce and mayonnaise. They were GOOD. And then for dinner during the week, "dressed up," and I'm gonna talk about that. But hell, there is nothing wrong with a good chicken cutlet.

It's very easy to cook one of these babies to the point where they are dry as dust. Breast meat is not very moist and has very little fat. So if you cook it too long, the moisture leaves, and you have a dry product that you have to 'cover' somehow. One day, if you eat that abomination of abominations, chicken cutlet parmagiana, try to clean out a piece of the chicken apart from the two inches of breading, the overly sweet red sauce and the cheese, and see how it tastes.

YUCK.

Here's how you do them really well. Like most leaner cuts of meat, cutlets do better staring on the stove, and being finished in the oven, at LOW heat, say 350. So I preheated the oven, and then I beat up three eggs. I plunked the cutlets into the egg wash, and then pulled them out, one at a time, dipping them in panko.

Panko, if you don't know what it is, is Japanese bread crumbs. I don't quite know how they're made. I THINK I do, but I'm not sure. Bottom line is that they are very , very crispy. If you don't have them, use dry bread crumbs. Season the with salt only, if you're going to make some for kids, or salt and pepper and whatever else you like, if they're for grownups (and you can start with just salt for the kiddies, and then add seasoning for yourself). You can let these dry for about a half hour, to fix the coating more firmly, but you don't have to. Heat up about a quarter cup of oil (I DO use olive oil here), with half a stick of butter, unsalted. Have more of these fats available. You may need them. Heat the fats together, and when the butter has melted, put in the cutlets. D on't overcrowd the pan. You'll hear a sizzle, and after about four minutes, check. Is it brown enough for you? (this is a judgment call. Less for kids, and maybe for you, darkear, perhaps for you). Do the same thing on the other side. Then put the cutlets onto a baking sheet and let them finish in the oven for about six or seven minutes, no longer.

These are fine, as they are, for kids. I served Becky hers with a little honey on the side. But now, we're gonna make something very versatile, in a non-sexual way, that you can use on the cutlets or anything else.

Remember back on my rant and rave about the seven mother sauces? Well, sometimes it's good to know what to do with one of them. I use bechamel type sauces a lot. This is a sauce based on the principles of bechamel. I had some grapefruits that needed to be used or I was gonna lose them. So I squeezed about half a cup of grapefruit juice. These were pink grapefruits, and I must be honest, it was hard for me not to drink it down. I put this to the side, as well as a cup of chicken stock.

Then, I melted two tablespoons of butter in a big pan, and shook in two tablespoons of flour, using my whisk. This clumped almost right away, but I've done this enough not to be worried. You shouldn't be either. I poured in the chicken stock, little by little, stirring. The clumps broke up, and I got a thick, mass of sauce. "Sauce" is the wrong word. You could NOT have poured this. It needed more liquid. So, in went the grapefruit juice, with more stirring and then, finally, the juice of two lemons. Stirring all the while, until I got a thick, but still liquid emulsion, which I seasoned with a little salt at the end.

Grapefruit bechamel. Not only did it go over the "grown up " cutlets, but it also went over some left over veal tenderloin, making a lovely lunch for the best fed doorman in the world. And there's still some left over. I'm wondering if perhaps I should stir it into some rice.

So, make some chicken cutlets. And in fact, make extra. They aren't inexpensive, so buy the economical pack, cook them all, and eat them all during the week. Make sandwiches, make dinner but DON'T make chicken cutlet parmagiana.

PLEASE. If you do, I'll never talk to you again