Every pub in the country serves one and most of them are a soggy apology. The fix is not reinvention, it is drainage: fry the crumb properly, keep the sauce thick, and get it under the grill rather than burying it in a slow oven. Italian Chilli Crunch goes through the sauce, Calabrian chilli and capers doing what a jar of passata never manages alone.
40 mins. Serves 4.
Ingredients
- 2 large Chicken breasts, halved and flattened
- 2 dessertspoons Plateit Italian Chilli Crunch
- 400g Tinned crushed tomatoes
- 150g Panko crumbs
- 80g Plain flour
- 2 Eggs, beaten
- 180g Mozzarella, torn
- 40g Parmesan, grated
- 200ml Neutral oil, for frying
Method
- Reduce the tomatoes hard in a small pan, 12 mins, until a spoon leaves a track. Stir 2 dessertspoons of Plateit Italian Chilli Crunch through, off the heat. Salt it.
- Flour, egg, panko each chicken piece. Press the crumb on firmly.
- Shallow fry over medium high, 3 mins a side, until deep gold. Drain on a rack, never on paper on a plate.
- Grill element to high. Chicken on a tray, a restrained spoon of sauce on each, mozzarella and parmesan over.
- Under the grill 4 to 5 mins until blistered. Eat immediately, while the crumb still has a spine.
Do this: Sauce goes on in the middle and stops short of the edges. The rim stays crisp and you get one dry corner to prove it was fried.
