Poulet Sauté Maryland

Poulet Sauté Maryland (butter-crumbed chicken with bacon, maize galettes, banana, and horseradish cream) teaches one principle almost too simple to trust: butter is the adhesive. The panure (crumb coating) has no flour or egg underneath. Dry, seasoned chicken is dipped in melted butter, drained, and pressed into breadcrumbs, giving a close bronze crust with the richness built in.

The old formula assumes a saucier at hand, clarified butter held ready, and a salamander free for the bacon. It does not call on the brigade's stock kept forever at a simmer, so we don't invent one. A small saucepan builds the horseradish cream on a roux blanc, the home broiler replaces the salamander, and an oven finish carries the bone-in pieces safely through after their crust is made in clarified butter. That oven finish is the only change to the chicken's procedure, necessary because pieces from one market bird vary enormously in thickness.

Separate cooks and a row of holding pans were brigade scaffolding, and they can go. The butter dip, clarified-butter cooking, grilled bacon, maize galettes, fried banana, and sauce passed separately are the dish itself, and every one stays. The source gives the galette's shape but not a complete batter, so one egg and a little wheat flour bind the maize meal into eight small cakes that survive a home skillet.

Before you touch the pan, dry the chicken completely and let the excess dipping butter fall away. Crumbs pressed onto a thin film of butter hold; crumbs floating on a puddle slide off. That is the step that decides the Maryland.