It's called beef milanese
and it's basically just a big beef cutlet.
For the beef, you wanna ask your butcher
for very thin top round beef.
They should be no more than,
oh, about an eighth to a quarter of an inch,
you see how thin these guys are?
For the breadcrumb mixture,
always season your breadcrumbs with something.
You should season kind of every layer
as you build a dish.
I've got the meat seasoned with salt and pepper.
I'm gonna season up my eggs a little bit.
Seasoning the meat or the flour,
that's stage one.
The middle stage is our eggs,
so I'm gonna add a little seasoning to that.
Then down here, we're gonna go nuts with the breadcrumbs.
First of all, the breadcrumbs themselves,
I have a mixture of fine and panko,
or homemade breadcrumbs.
You want a mixture of larger breadcrumbs
and smaller breadcrumbs for an extra crispy crust
when you're done.
To this, I'm finely chopping a little fresh sage,
and then the secret ingredient,
not so secret 'cause I'm telling you,
grated Parmigiano-Reggiano.
Then, we're going to add best friends,
granulated garlic and granulated onion,
they like to go everywhere together.
And then, a little crushed red pepper flake,
or black if you prefer, you need a little heat in there.
A little parsley, fresh or dried.
If you have some in the pantry you wanna use up,
sprinkle that in.
A little thyme, again, fresh or dried,
nice to use up if you have some in the pantry.
And then, another secret ingredient of mine,
a little ground fennel or fennel pollen.
Makes it taste like a sausage, yum.
So, we're going to start our process,
and these are huge pieces of beautiful top round.
We could probably only do one at a time here,
but I'll show you, you shake off all your excess,
turn evenly in the egg,
make sure you get the egg all over or,
of course, the breading won't stick,
and then into the crumbs.
Press evenly
to get that coated really well.
And then, into the oil it goes.
We've got some working in the back
and I'll keep this one cooking here.
When we come back, we'll talk about the topping.
(audience applauding)
(upbeat music)
When you serve milanese, chicken milanese,
veal milanese, beef milanese,
which is what we're making today,
it's very traditional to put a raw tomato salad on top,
tomatoes with arugula
or tomato just with a little red onion,
tomato with any, like, very light dressing,
tomato and basil, fine,
but we have sage in this.
I'm going to make a really simple green salad with escarole.
Oh, I better not let this sit too long.
Oh, gorgeous, perfect.
So, you let these guys go 'till they're super crispy.
So much flavor, these are great just
with a squeeze of lemon on them,
but we're going to do a really simple salad
with some shaved fennel,
so you take a bulb of fennel.
So, we're gonna take our fresh fennel,
throw that in our bowl,
toss it with some shaved shallot or red onion,
also use your mandolin for that,
and then we're going to squish in
the juice of a lemon, you want it to be nice
and acidic to cut through the fat
that we cooked the meat in,
that nice, crispy cutlet.
That brightness of acidity
will really punch up the topping.
A little salt to get all the flavor
and juices out of the fennel
and the onions or shallot, whichever you use.
And then, we're going to add in our escarole,
which I washed and dried on a clean kitchen towel,
just let it dry out a bit.
And then, we're going to toss this all together
with shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano.
Good EVOO for this,
regular olive oil or safflower oil to fry in, though.
When we come back, we'll plate this up.
(audience applauds)
So, my husband John is picking me up from work today,
and if he's in the office right now seeing this,
he's gonna expect to eat this,
it's one of his faves.
It's crispy beef milanese,
look at the size of this cutlet.
It's literally bigger than my head.
You have to literally get a platter
to serve this on, and then we put our bright,
lemony, shaved fennel, red onion or shallot,
and escarole salad up on top
with all that shaved cheese, the Parmigiano-Reggiano.
Look at all that shaved cheese in there,
oh my God, and then you just throw
the steak knife under it.
Is that gorgeous or what? (audience applauds)