I Learned The Name For This Thing I've Been Doing: Paneéd Chicken

Jess Kapadia•

I guarantee there is not one of you who, when breading something, hasn't either thought to (or actually gone through with) adding cheese to breadcrumbs. How could it be a bad idea? It couldn't be, and truth be told, I do a ratio of about 1/3 cheese to 2/3 breadcrumbs, with an extra yolk in the egg wash to hold it together. Sometimes I roll my breading subject in in cheese, then egg, then breadcrumbs. I call it "the ultimate cheesy breading before I deep-fry" technique. But it turns out the actual name for is paneéing. It hails from New Orleans.

Here's the technique: combine your preferred ratio of grated Parmesan cheese and breadcrumbs, season with salt, pepper and whatever else (good time to go nuts with the dried herbs). Egg and bread, or cheese, egg and bread, the point is to get as much cheese adhereed to the subject as possible. Rather than keep saying "subject," let's cut straight to examples past chicken tenders.

So with great pleasure, I decree that paneéing, like Chinese oranging and pa amb tomàqueting is now a verb. As in "I paneéd that jalapeño popper and it rocked."

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