Egg Katsu Sando
My egg katsu sando is a copycat of the Shake Shack and I am obsessed with it! The sandwich layers a silky steamed egg patty, a crisp panko coat, and a miso honey mayo on soft milk bread. I rebuilt it for the home kitchen after Shake Shack pulled it from the menu.
so maybe you're like me, from south florida, and you really love Flanigan's. maybe you watched this video:
and you realized, hey, i don't know what all of those things are. buttercream base? butter? that isn't butter. what the fuck is whirl? what the fuck is a butter-flavored oil??
i am here to tell you that you don't need all of that. you can make this dish and have it taste dead-ass just like the one from flanigan's at home. here's how you do it.
italians, do not give me shit. i make carbonara with no cream, with guanciale. i make "alfredo" only with parmesan and pasta water. i don't break my pasta. this isn't for you. this is for mi gente out here.
flanigan's-style lemon chicken pasta
(serves 4)
equipment you will need:
a dish to put your flour in; i suggest something very flat but with raised edges like a small casserole tray.
a big bowl to mix your sauce in before transferring to saucepan
a smaller bowl, metal or plastic, to discard hot oil into
a sauté pan (preferably 12"), or a 10" skillet
a saucepan for the sauce (i use a skillet)
a large pot for the pasta
a flat spatula, preferably metal, that can remove the chicken breasts clean from a pan without leaving anything underneath
a ladle
a whisk
tongs would be nice, for handling the chicken while cooking
a microplane, or at least like some kind of fruit or vegetable peeler, for zesting 1 lemon
for pasta:
1 16oz pack of linguine
tap water to cook the pasta (follow the pasta directions to cook it)
salt for the water (do not forget to put salt in your pasta water, please)
for sauce:
1 cup jarred alfredo sauce
1 cup heavy cream
2 tbsp of 2% milk
1 tbsp lemon pepper seasoning
the zest of half a lemon
for chicken:
2 big chicken breasts, butterflied and separated and pounded thin into 4 cutlets (alternatively, 4 kinda smaller breasts, butterflied and pounded thin)
about a cup of flour, for dredging
lemon pepper seasoning as needed
about half a cup of ghee and half a cup of avocado oil
pre-cooking prep:
take your chicken breasts and butterfly them in half and pound them thin
season one side with a liberal coating of lemon pepper seasoning, let it stick
dredge your seasoned chicken cutlet in flour, set aside. do this with all of them.
start getting the ghee and avocado oil in your sauté pan hot, medium-high heat. (if you are using a smaller pan to cook in batches, use less ghee/oil)
premix your alfredo, cream, water, milk, lemon pepper seasoning and lemon zest in a bowl, whisking
cooking:
raise the saucepan to low/medium-low heat
add the sauce mix in the saucepan and leave it; stir occasionally
if you are using a full-sized sauté pan, once the oil mix is hot, add all your chicken cutlets, lemon pepper side down. (if you are using a smaller pan, like 10", and there's room for only two, do this in two batches, and start pasta on the second batch.)
start pasta right after your chicken is lowered in; stir occasionally
cook chicken until oil starts to bubble heavily and the bottom side has gotten color. flip. let it cook on that side too. if you have a thermometer, i'd check that the thickest part of the chicken gets to ~160F+.
your sauce should be bubbling a bit. if it is, lower the heat as low as it'll go to keep it hot. remember to keep stirring.
once your chicken is ready to go, release the pieces of chicken from the pan by scraping them off with the spatula—but keep them in the pap, proper!
take your pan and discard the oil into a waiting container. put the pan back on the heat.
immediately ladle enough sauce to both cover your chicken and get the fond off the pan, and lower the heat. let the low heat and sauce sort of finish cooking up a little; you'll be fine doing everything else while this sits there on a very low simmer.
your pasta OUGHT to be done by now. drain it, put it back in the pot, add the remaining sauce in there and toss it.
plate 4 servings of pasta, serve one cutlet of chicken over it or on the side along with the nice and chickeny sauce from it over the top
ingredients i used that you can buy, if you want:
Ragú Classic Alfredo
McCormick Lemon Pepper because I couldn't find the Kinder equivalent; this was just as good. (there's a Cracked Pepper and Lemon from Kinder that is NOT what you want. do not get that one.)
