Team Eats: AC MILAN – Chicken Milanese

Back by popular demand, Team Eats is a culinary guide to cooking and consuming the opposition. Each week, we pick a recipe from the home cuisine of Juve’s upcoming adversary, put on the kitchen apron and… cook it and eat it. Buon Appetito!

 
San Siro Showdown! This Saturday Juventus travel to Stadio Giuseppe Meazza, ready to fight it out for the top of the Serie A table against AC Milan. Time to get out the big spoon and the big dish, because it’s time for The Big Match!

With a reputation of being Italy’s business and culture capital, the city of Milano is probably more known for its fashion, media, and industry than its food. 80% of Italian publishing houses are located in Milan, and the city is also home to the top fashion brands including Versace, Prada, Armani and Dolce & Gabbana.

Milan is also a capital of Italian food, in the sense that cuisines from all over Italy can found somewhere including Puglia, Abruzzo, Sardinia, and Sicily.

A city that lives off being fashionable and trendy, the food scene in Milan is no different. Reportedly in the 1908s Chinese food was the first culinary trend in Milan, and pioneered the way for foreign restaurants to be fashionable in Italy. Like any modern metropolis however, the gastronomical delights of foreign foods have all come into fashion including Indian, African, Japanese, Middle Eastern, and American (which can only mean McDonald’s!)

Only in recent times has Milan undergone a resurgence for traditional local recipes, and now it’s in vogue for even the fanciest luxury restaurants to serve traditional Milanese dishes. One of the most famous Milanese dishes is “Risotto alla Milanese”, which is a delicious creamy rice cooked in beef stock and flavored with cheese and saffron…

Today however we’re making linguine with chicken (and my selection of a recipe featuring “chicken” is NOT a dig at how scared Milan is, to host a Juve squad out for blood with vengeance in their heart and Conte-FIRE in their eyes…)

Nope.

Just a coincidence.

Pinky swear.
 

Ingredients

• 1 lb linguine
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
• 1/2 teaspoon dried parsley flakes
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper, divided
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon dried basil
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1-1/2 lbs boneless skinless chicken breasts
• 1 beer (optional)
• kosher salt (to wash the meat)

Directions

1. Wash the chicken. Throw a big dash of kosher salt in a deep bowl of water and soak/scrub the meat in the salt bath for a few minutes before rinsing the chicken clean. If you don’t have kosher salt, just wash the meat as best you can in running water.

2. Cut the chicken into strips. According to the recipe they’re supposed to be pretty big strips, but if you like smaller meat in your pasta just cut them smaller.

3. Start the linguine cooking by heating a big pot of water. Follow the instructions on the box to cook. In a shallow bowl, combine the flour, basil, salt and a 1/4 teaspoon pepper.

4. In another shallow bowl, add the eggs with 1/4 cup of beer and whisk together. The beer adds a nice flavor and frothiness, but is optional.

5. Dredge the chicken strips in the flour mixture.

6. Dip the flour-dredged chicken strips into the egg whisk.

7. In a large skillet, sauté the garlic in 1 tablespoon olive oil until tender (about 1 minute). Stir in parsley and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Remove this oily garlic mixture to a small bowl and set aside, we’ll use this as a topping later.

8. In the same skillet, cook the egg-soaked floured chicken in 1.5 table spoons of oil, stirring frequently over medium-high heat, until no longer pink (about 15 minutes).

9. Around this time your linguine should be almost ready. Don’t forget to take them immediately out of the water when you’re supposed to, for a nice pasta al dente (otherwise they’ll keep cooking).

10. Once the chicken is ready, give it a taste. If you think it’s too dry, add another splash or two of beer and cooking for a few more minutes… or if you drank all your beer, use the starch-fused water that your linguine has been cooking in.

11. Drain the linguine, pour that reserved garlic mixture from step 7 over it, and toss to coat. Then toss the linguine with the sauteed chicken.

12. Consume. Imagine each charming chicken chunk is another Berlusconi grimace, and each luxurious linguine loop is another Adriano Galliani Uncle Fester frown.

Fun to prepare, easy to complete, and lovely to look at, this dish is very tasty. My one gripe is the lack of tomatoes, but that’s only because I prefer red sauce. I stopped myself from making one of my famous “modifications” and just throwing in tomatoes, but one defining characteristic of this recipe (and many other northern dishes) is the lack of a red sauce.

But still, lack of red aside, this is still delicious. Post your attempts in the comments below.

So who’s ready for Milan? Gimme a ‘HELL YEAH’!

★ BUON APPETITO ★