Recipe: Chicken alla Milanese DYC Style

If Colonel Sanders ever embraces Drink Your Carbs, this will be the replacement for the Original Recipe™.

This is highly unlikely since the Colonel died in 1980, but it is not impossible. All it requires is a monumental shift in KFC corporate philosophy and Tupac’s special effects team.

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​No individual KFC executive knows the complete Original Recipe. The company divides knowledge of the 11 herbs and spices among three people who, we assume, are never allowed to book seats on the same flight. This means that somewhere in the organization is a loyal executive who spent years climbing the chain of command to learn that he or she is trusted only as far as “salt, pepper and MSG.”

We hold a very different attitude. When our parents admonished us to share our toys, we took it seriously. This is our Secret Recipe in its entirety. Future billion dollar chicken franchise be damned.

​For anyone who has never tasted Chicken alla Milanese, the traditional Italian preparation is a chicken breast that is pounded thin before being breaded and deep-fried. It’s sauced with fresh tomatoes, basil and balsamic vinegar. The Drink Your Carbs version looks and tastes exactly like Chicken alla Milanese, but it’s low-carb and never goes near a fryer. It also happens to be gluten and dairy-free.

Chicken alla Milanese Recipe

(Serves Four)

Ingredients:

• 6 boneless, skinless chicken breast fillets, cut in half with tenderloins removed. (For anyone unfamiliar with the tenderloin, it’s the finger-sized piece of chicken meat attached to the underside of the breast. We remove the tenderloin because the dish looks better without it. We save these in a Ziploc and use them the next day in a stir-fry or any other recipe that calls for small strips of chicken.)
• 1 ¼ cups finely ground and blanched almond flour (This is sometimes called “almond meal.” Our favorite is Benefit Your Life organic almond flour, but any brand will work.)
• 2 tsp. garlic powder
• 1 tbsp. salt
• 1 tbsp. ground black pepper
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 3 cups coarsely chopped (½ inch squares) fresh tomatoes. (Early Girls are our favorite, but cherry tomatoes - Sweet 100s or Golden - work just as well.)
• 1 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
• ¼ cup chopped fresh basil, plus 4 whole basil leaves for garnish
• 3 tbsp. balsamic vinegar
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
• Additional oil for searing

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 400°. Lightly oil a large baking sheet. (We prefer to use coconut oil for this, but you can use any oil that can handle high heat.) Place the oiled baking sheet in the oven to heat up;
2. In a large bowl, mix the tomatoes and chopped basil together and add the olive oil, balsamic, salt and freshly ground pepper. Allow the mixture to rest for at least 10 minutes before serving;
3. Using a chef’s mallet, frying pan or rolling pin (choose your weapon from anything that will flatten the chicken), gently beat the chicken breast halves between two sheets of plastic wrap or parchment paper. The goal is to flatten them to around ¼ inch thick. Try not to beat on them too hard or you risk spraying raw chicken across your kitchen. If you’ve ever seen the comedian Gallagher smash a watermelon you know exactly the technique you want to avoid;
4. Mix the almond flour, garlic powder, salt and pepper in a bowl. A wire whisk works well for this. Be sure to break up any chunks in the almond flour so the resulting mix is smooth;
5. Pre-heat about 1 tsp. of olive or coconut oil on medium high heat in a large non-stick frying pan. You want the chicken to sizzle when you put it in, but not burn;
6. Working with one piece of chicken at a time, dip the chicken into the egg and then dredge it through the almond flour mixture. If it’s done correctly, a light coating of the flour should now cover the entire piece of chicken. Sear each side of the chicken for approx. one minute until it becomes crispy and golden brown. Use tongs to gently transfer each piece of chicken onto the pan in the oven, being careful not to knock off the lovely coating. Repeat this process until all of your chicken is done and resting in the oven;
7. If the oil gets too hot (immediately blackens the chicken breast) or turns to a dark brown, dump the oil out, wipe the pan clean and start with fresh, pre-heated oil for the next piece of chicken;
8. Allow the chicken to sit in the oven for 2-3 minutes after the last breast has been seared. This ensures both the almond flour and chicken are fully cooked;
9. Serve the chicken breast topped with ½ cup of the cold tomato mixture. Garnish with a whole basil leaf. Serve immediately.

Flattening the chicken breasts with a rolling pin:

Prepping the tomatoes and basil:

Dipping each chicken breast into the egg, coating it lightly with almond flour and browning both sides before transferring it to the oven:

You may have noticed that we include far fewer than 11 herbs and spices. Simply add more spices if you feel the need to crank your blend up to 11. But do beware of the Curse of the Colonel.

We know this sounds crazy, but the Curse of the Colonel is real. In 1985, the Hanshin Tigers of Kansai Japan won the Japan Series, the Japanese equivalent to the World Series. Fans went wild and swarmed into the street. For reasons that we will never understand, in the midst of their euphoric celebrations, fans stole a fiberglass statue of Colonel Sanders from an Osaka KFC franchise and threw it, with great ceremony, off a bridge into a river.

The very next season, the Hanshin Tigers began an extended losing streak and the Curse of the Colonel, or Kāneru Sandāsu no Noroi, was born. We would be tempted to laugh at the superstitiousness of Japanese baseball fans, but the truth is that Hanshin’s curse is no different from the Chicago Cubs’ Curse of the Billy Goat or the Red Sox Curse of the Bambino.

In a 2005 interview with the Taipei Times, then President of KFC, Gregg Dedrick, ominously warned “anyone divulging [the secret blend] might incur the curse of the Colonel.” If you’re superstitious and a baseball fan, the last thing you want to do is to happen upon the secret blend accidentally. If this were to occur, the simple act of innocently sharing your version with a friend would unleash the Colonel’s fury. Superstitious baseball fans should play it safe and stop adding herbs and spices when they reach 10.

Update: Curse of the Colonel has been lifted.​ The statue has been found and recovered from the Dotonbori river. Fans of the Hanshin Tigers rejoice.

The Photo and Full Story Courtesy of the Guardian UK.