Pollo alla Milanese

Name: Pollo alla Milanese
Total time: 30 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients: Chicken breast; Plain flour; Egg white; Dried breadcrumbs; Parmesan; Olive oil; Salt; Black pepper; Lemon juice

Pollo alla Milanese, plated as one serving.

335 kcal a serving, against 669 for the traditional version. That is 334 kcal off, or 50%, with 41.7g of protein. Serves 4. 30 minutes.

What the traditional version is

Chicken breasts beaten flat with a meat mallet, dredged in plain flour, dipped in beaten whole egg, and coated in a heavy mix of dried breadcrumbs and parmesan. The whole thing is then shallow-fried in a generous mix of butter and olive oil until golden. It gets served with lemon.

What changed, and what each change costs

100g of butter and 50g of olive oil down to 15g of olive oil

The traditional frying method uses an absolute ocean of fat. The breadcrumbs soak it up like a sponge as soon as they hit the pan.

What it costs you. You lose the rich, buttery flavour and the perfect, even golden fry. Baked breadcrumbs dry out if you aren't careful. You've got to trust the high oven heat and use a wire rack to stop the bottom going soggy.

100g of whole eggs down to 100g of egg white

Whole eggs add fat to the dredging station. Egg whites do the exact same glueing job for a fraction of the calories, leaving you more room for the cheese.

What it costs you. None at all. You literally can't taste the difference once the chicken is covered in baked cheese and toasted breadcrumbs.

50g of plain flour down to 30g

You only need a microscopic dusting of flour to make the egg stick to the wet chicken. Anything more just turns to wallpaper paste under the crust.

What it costs you. It requires a bit more care. You have to shake the chicken hard to knock off the excess flour before it hits the egg white.

What goes in it

The ingredients, without the quantities. The weights are what the figures below are computed from, and they are in the book.

Chicken breast
Plain flour
Egg white
Dried breadcrumbs
Parmesan
Olive oil
Salt
Black pepper
Lemon juice

How it starts

Preheat your oven to 220C.
Put the chicken breasts on a chopping board, cover them with baking paper, and bash them with a rolling pin until they are exactly 1.5cm thick all over.
Set up your dredging station using three shallow bowls.

The rest of the method, and every weight, is in Authentic-ish Italian.

The numbers

Per serving	Traditional	Lightened
Calories	669	335
Protein	45.1g	41.7g
Fat	43.2g	10.3g
Saturated fat	18g	2.6g
Carbohydrate	23.2g	16.1g
Protein per 100 kcal	6.7g	12.4g

Every figure is computed from the recipe's own weighed ingredient list against public food composition databases. The appendix in Authentic-ish Italian prints the exact database row used for each ingredient, so any number here can be checked. How every number is computed sets out the method.

Allergens. gluten, eggs, milk.

The method is in the book

You're trading away the buttery fry, and I won't lie to you about that. But you're keeping the crunch, the parmesan tang, and the massive hit of poultry. This is a brilliant midweek dinner that absolutely hits the spot. Nobody is going to mistake it for a deep-fried masterpiece.

The quantities and the method for this dish are in Authentic-ish Italian, along with 59 more. Buy the paperback