bowl of flour. Scoop up some flour and toss it on top
of the food, then toss the food around until it’s nicely
coated.
Still using your right hand, pick up the food from the
flour, shake it a bit to get rid of the excess, and drop
it into the egg bowl. This time, use your left hand to
move the food around until it’s well coated.
- Still using your left hand, pick up the eggy food, let it
drip a bit, and drop it into the bowl with the bread
crumbs. Here’s the tricky part: If you were to now
use your right hand to pick up the food and flip it,
you’d get egg on it. Use your left hand, and you end
up coating it in bread crumbs. Here’s what to do:
Use your right hand to pick up some extra bread
crumbs from around the food and drop them on top,
then carefully spread them around until you can pick
up the food without egging your hand. Flip the food
and repeat, pressing it into the crumbs to coat it
thoroughly. It pays to have more bread crumbs than
you need in the bowl. - Pick up the food with your right hand and transfer it
to a plate or a rack, ready to be fried.
As far as cooking the chicken goes, I found that shallow-
frying it in a wide skillet was less messy and easier to
clean up than deep-frying it. I also used panko-style
crumbs, which I seasoned myself—far easier than making
your bread crumbs, and much better than the sandy
“Italian-style” crumbs from the supermarket (see
“Fractals, Panko, and Bread-Crumb Coatings,” here).