Crispy Chicken Schnitzel That Stays Juicy

Today, we're making a proper pub classic, chicken schnitzel, creamy mash, and Diane sauce. Now, starting with our mash, we've got our potatoes that have been peeled. We can slice these in half and then slice them into quarters. Once quartered, just go through and chop these up, making sure that they're all the same size. That way, everything will cook at the same rate. We're going to add our chopped potatoes in. Fill this up with enough cold water to cover them by about an inch. Then once on our stovetop over a high heat, season it with salt, bring it to a boil, and cook for 18 minutes. In the meantime, let's get a saucepan onto our stovetop over a medium heat. We'll start off with our butter base and just allow this to melt. And then we'll add in two cloves of garlic that's just been roughly minced. Cook this down for a couple of minutes just until it's nice and fragrant. You get that really nice nutty flavor all over the garlic as well as from the butter. And I do recommend keeping it moving. That way, nothing burns too easily, but the heat distribution in this part is absolutely fantastic. Add in one teaspoon of tomato paste. This is just going to develop flavor. Continue mixing that around. We're going to cook this for a total of two minutes. At this stage, I've got roughly two cups of beef gravy. We can just add all of that in there. Keep this over a medium heat. Mix all of that through. Let all of those flavors become friends. And we're going to bring this up to a simmer and just let it cook away for about two minutes until it thickens up. If it does happen to get too thick, you can add a bit more water just to thin it down slightly. Once you're happy with that, we can add in one tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce. You might need more, you might need less. Just go to your tastes. Just stir that through. And then we can finish it off with 80 milliliters or one third of a cup of thickened cream or cooking cream. Now give this a good mix around. Just make sure all of those flavors have developed well and they've got a beautiful light golden brown color. Just taste it and adjust any seasoning with salt and pepper as well. And you can add a little bit more Worcestershire sauce if you think it needs it. I like to crank up the heat to medium high at this stage, let it come back up to a simmer, and then I'm going to cook it for about a minute just to slightly thicken. After a couple of minutes, you have this beautiful, rich, golden sauce. Looks something like this. And if you run your finger through it, creates that nice ribbon pattern. This can then be removed from the stovetop and just set aside until we're ready to serve. With the sauce out the way, what I have here is one chicken breast. It's been butterflied and then lightly tenderized with a meat mallet. All I'm going to do is add this into some plain flour, and you can season this with whatever you like. Give this a really nice coating of that flour. Just make sure you get in any of those nooks and crannies. Just make sure all of that chicken breast is completely covered. With that coated, just shake off any excess and then transfer into an egg wash, which is three eggs and a little bit of milk mixed together. Make sure you coat this really well as well. Make sure there's no dry spots. Sometimes it can happen and then it won't get completely coated in our breadcrumbs. Just go through and give that a good massage. Transfer from the egg wash. Just let any of that drain off a little bit just so we're not completely saturating our breadcrumbs and then transfer straight over and give this a good coating all over. I'm using panko breadcrumbs. I find you get a better crust that way, but you can use fine breadcrumbs if you prefer. Once that's lightly coated, again, just make sure you get off any excess and then place this onto a tray. Coming back to our potatoes that have been cooking away. They're soft, fork tender, and have been drained. We can start mashing these up. You can use a potato ricer if you prefer and strain it through a sieve just to remove any lumps. Now, once you're happy with how smooth your mash is, we can add in our unsalted butter that's been cubed and it's at room temperature. I'm also adding in about 80 milliliters of thickened cream. You can use milk and you can use as much or as little as you like. All we need to do is mix this through. Just allow that butter to melt through. It's going to become silky smooth. I like the cream just for that extra fat content. It just makes it taste even better, but of course you can use milk if you prefer. Season to taste with a little bit of salt. I like to use ground white pepper for this recipe. Then just continue mixing until everything's smooth, everything's combined, and you have a silky smooth mashed potato. Now, for our schnitzel, we want to get a large high-rimmed pan or pot over a high heat. Add in your neutral oil and we're going to heat this up to 170 degrees Celsius or 340 degrees Fahrenheit. When it's at the correct temperature, we can add in our schnitzel. Just place it away from ourselves. We're going to lightly shallow fry this for about three to four minutes on each side. After you have a nice golden crust forming, we can flip this over and don't be afraid to flip it a few times just to even out the color. After you have a beautiful golden color on the chicken, it's nice and crispy. And of course it's cooked through. We can remove it from that pan, just drain off any excess oil and then place it onto a tray to drain. I like to let this rest for about five minutes, otherwise it's going to be scorching hot. And in the meantime, we can just season this with a little bit of sea salt flakes. With plating up, we'll place down our mashed potato first. You can lay out a bed or just a little mound off to the corner and then we can rest our chicken schnitzel over the top of that. Or if you use that as a bed, place it directly over the top. And then in a ramekin, or you can just pour it straight over, depending on how you're feeling, you can add that Diane sauce off to the side and garnish it with a little bit of flat leaf parsley. So with all of that said and done, I'm going to break open that schnitzel, get a little bit of that mash and some of that Diane sauce. We can then dig in. Cooked to perfection and absolutely delicious.