Chicken Cutlets with Olio e Aglio

Company for dinner last night so we had 8 kids (ages 2 to 12) and 7 adults. I made chicken cutlets, homemade macaroni and cheese, angel hair pasta with olio e aglio (oil and garlic), a Caesar salad and had applesauce and carrot sticks on the kids’ table.

Chicken cutlets. Pound the chicken until thin. Soak in buttermilk for a few hours. I use pie pans for dipping trays, which gives you a big enough flat surface. In one pan beat an egg or two (1 per 4 (half) chicken breasts about) and mix in a bit of water or milk or soy sauce and lemon juice. Put flour in another pan and seasoned bread crumbs in a third. I seasoned mine with an Italian herb mix and grated Parmesan cheese. Put some olive oil and butter (2 Tbs each) in a big frying pan and heat over medium heat. Line the pie pans up: chicken, flour, egg, bread crumbs. Use two forks and move the chicken from one to the next. Do this right when you’re ready to cook. Don’t bread things ahead of time. After breading them, set them in the hot oil and cook for a few minutes on each side. You can usually tell they’re done when a fork pierces through the chicken easily, but cut one open to make sure until you get a feel for it. If you’re cooking a lot, lay them on a cookie sheet and put them in the oven to stay warm until they’re all done.

Olio e aglio. Heat up some good quality olive oil with a bunch of chopped garlic. I don’t measure but I’d guess for half a package of pasta maybe about 1/4 olive oil and 2-3 large cloves of garlic. Do not overheat or the garlic will taste bad. You just want it softened and warmed. Cook some angel hair pasta about 3 minutes in boiling water. Drain. Mix with the oil and garlic and top with grated Parmesan cheese.