Crumbed Chicken

I've occasionally cooked crumbed pork cutlets before, so I was already familiar with the basics of crumbing food. Flour, then egg, then crumbs, then fry it. I used a modified crispy chicken recipe from +Annette's Friendly Food cookbook as the basis for tonight's dinner.

Crumbed chicken with mashed potato and fried leeks

The mashed potato was as I've described earlier (which also details the preparation of breadcrumbs), and the leeks were just chopped and fried until browned. The leeks turned out a bit chewy, but I'm not sure if it's because I cooked them too long and dried them out, or if it's just because the leeks I used were a bit old to start with.

The crumbed chicken recipe is as follows.

• Chicken breasts, depending how many people you're feeding
• Plain flour
• An egg or two
• 1 tablespoon of water per egg
• Breadcrumbs
• Poppy seeds
• Salt

Cut up the chicken breasts into medallions about 15mm thick. 

Prepare three bowls; in the first, put plain flour. In the second, whisk the eggs and water together. In the third, combine a good deal of breadcrumbs, a few teaspoons of poppy seeds, and a dash of salt. 

Coat the chicken pieces in flour, then dip in the egg mixture, then coat with the breadcrumb mixture. Place the pieces onto a lightly greased baking tray. 

Put the tray in the fridge for 20-30 minutes to let the coating set a little. 

Preheat the oven to 200ºC, then bake the chicken for half an hour or until cooked all the way through.