BASHED FLAT CHICKEN!

If there is one real honest truth in the world then it is definitely that your Mum's home cooking is, and always will be, the best. No other way with food is ever as good as Mum's way. Not even close.

Which is lucky here because the pictures we took while Mum did bashed flat chicken tonight really don't do it justice. But you'll get the idea and see the way that Mum's settled on doing it based on years of constant requests from us when she asks 'What do you want for dinner this week'. 

There's quite a history of bashed flat chicken which goes back a long way in our family. Its origin was when I was little. Sometimes after a long day 'At the Shops' in London (That's working in Jampa Telco's shops - not actually shopping at the shops) we would be too hungry for the long drive back to our home in Brookmans Park. So we'd have an early dinner at the 'Old Kentucky Chicken' restaurant at the top of Edgware Road by Marble Arch. This was a massive treat. Massive. Although I don't remember a great deal about it apart from their red gingham check table cloths and a big sign saying 'Tennesssee' on the wall inside over the tables with bright lightbulbs all round it. But I seriously do remember the 'Chicken Maryland' that I always had. This was the ancestor of our Bashed Flat chicken.

Chicken Maryland at the Old Kentucky was pan-fried crispy, herby, breadcrumbed chicken breast with the wing bone in. It was served with a sweetcorn fritter, a fried banana halved length-ways, proper American french fries and always a jar of bright yellow sweetcorn relish. I was about ten years old. It was heavenly. Fried banana and chips and sweetcorn relish! At that age the chicken was incidental.

Many years later, at Church Street in Old Hatfield, me and Mum started to cook it at home. No deep fryers in our house and bone-in chicken breast has never been on sale in supermarkets so we improvised and improved. I knew about chicken escalope being pounded flat and breadcrumbed so we worked out the sequence of herbs-egg-breadcrumbs quite quickly. The banana was always a bit of a failure because the roundy side doesn't cook well in a pan. Sweetcorn fritters are great things but a whole lot of extra effort after the chicken is done. Chips have never been a household thing for us.

Bring Back Patty Pans!

And so it was. With the crispy, herby, chicken we started to do plain buttered butterfly pasta - Farfalle. And with that we used to cook baby squash called Patty Pans. They were great too but I haven't seen them for many years. Until recently we used to make a salsa from fresh tomato and cucumber in oil and vinegar with fresh coriander and fresh banana. But somehow we've stopped doing it. I don't know why. Maybe the same reason that this week when Mum said what do you want for dinner we decided on salad and new potatoes instead of the now all time Telco family classic of frozen sweetcorn and pasta bows in butter.

So get off to Sainsbury's now and buy that chicken. Boneless breast works best because you can batter it out really flat and it looks so impressive on your plate. But as usual boneless chicken thighs are tastier and cheaper and they do work really well too. Thigh meat doesn't bash flat as much and you can see we used it for our dinner here which is why the pieces aren't that big.

1 x Chicken breast or thigh per person
1 x Beaten egg
1 x lot of breadcrumbs
1 x lot of dried mixed herbs. Chloe - that smell is home!
Plenty of oil for frying. A mixture of olive oil and rapeseed oil.

First get all your stuff ready to do the chicken. You'll need a dish each with dried herbs, egg and

breadcrumbs and two plates to put the chicken on before and after cooking. The one for after can go in the oven to keep warm and a piece of kitchen towel will absorb excess oil after frying.

Put the chicken pieces cut side up and spread open as much as possible, onto a big chopping board. Trim any big fatty or otherwise yucky bits off but try to leave the mini fillet (It's called a supreme in France) attached. Cover over generously with clingfilm remembering that it's going to end up bigger after you've bashed it.

Now bash. You can be as bash-happy as you like but compromise because too thin is difficult to work with when dipping and coating. Aim for about 6-7mm thick. Remove the cling film.

Now dip each piece first in dried herbs and pat lightly to make sure they're stuck. Then dip in the egg and coat with breadcrumbs. Work through the whole lot until they're all piled up on your first plate ready to cook. You might think that you could clingfilm them now ready to cook later but what can happen is that the breadcrumbs all stick to each other and come off again. Better to cook them immediately.

The three stages: Herbs, Egg and Breadcrumbs.

In a wide flat frying pan heat about 5mm of oil to medium heat. If you drip a drop of water from the tap it should immediately boil but not crazy spitty which is too hot. Temperature control is key here but not difficult. You are aiming to gently fry the pieces once on each side to a nice colour but not so fast or the chicken won't also cook through. About 4-5 minutes gentle cooking on each side does it.

About 4-5 minutes each side - Medium heat!

 As each one is cooked you remove them from the pan and put on kitchen paper on a plate in a warm (50C) oven to stay warm while you cook the next lot.

If you want to try sweetcorn fritters they're easy. Just mix tinned sweetcorn into your normal pancake mixture with a little extra salt. If you drop tablespoons of the mixture into a clean oiled pan and flatten them into little fritters they're great. Often worth cooking on their own for teatime.

And that's it. Not many ingredients. What you have with it is up to you but we all know that farfalle and frozen sweetcorn is the way forward. And a tasty salsa with deseeded tomato, cucumber, and chopped banana.

Fruit very definitely in context here Miranda.