By Kitty Greenwald / Photographs by Laura Murray for WSJ
The Chef: Nick Curtola
His Restaurants: The Four Horsemen and a forthcoming Italian restaurant, both in Brooklyn's Williamsburg.
What He's Known For: Creating inventive dishes in the tiny kitchen of an ambitious wine bar; Cooking with a hyperseasonal attention to detail; Forging a name for himself alongside a team of celebrity partners.
While writing his debut cookbook, which was released last month, chef Nick Curtola reckoned with a challenge many pros could relate to: how to translate the spirit of the dishes at his beloved Brooklyn wine bar in ways that would work for home cooks. This recipe for chicken-fried steak -- an adaptation of a veal sweetbread dish occasionally offered at the Four Horsemen -- both proves his success and serves as his third Slow Food Fast contribution.
Here Curtola exchanges the fried sweetbreads for boneless chicken thighs, which are both easier to source and more widely appealing. Once pounded thin and fried to golden, the cutlets are robed in a buttery mushroom-onion sauce that's sweetened with a glug of Marsala wine. "The original dish is smaller and more delicate," the chef explained. "But this version came out so well that we also ran it on our menu."
For Curtola, the smothered chicken cutlets also trigger a bit of nostalgia, evoking a dish that he'd often bike to his local diner to order as a kid. "It's both comforting and what you crave," he explained. "I also like that it feels a bit Italian-American." Driving that Mediterranean feeling home? The splash of Marsala, which simmers with butter and chicken stock before roasted onions and mushrooms are stirred through.
To prepare the cutlets, pound the thighs until thin and uniform. Then bread and fry each one in a pool of warm olive oil until the outside crackles. To avoid burning the breading before the inside cooks through, go gently and keep the temperature steady. As for the sauce, Curtola simmers the alcohol off and finishes with butter to keep the end result feeling luxurious, not watery or gloopy. Follow his lead and you'll wind up with a restaurant-quality meal that punches far above its weight -- just as he intended.
--Food Styling by Sean Dooley; Prop Styling by Steph De Luca
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 19, 2024 17:15 ET (22:15 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2024 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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