Chicken Piccata

We were watching the 1st episode of 'Top Chef Chicago" on Food Network a couple of days ago and one of the "expert" judges said something that really got the hair at the back of my neck to stand.

They were judging the chicken cooked by one of the contestant, a guy called Ryan who was asked to make Chicken Piccata. The poor guy made his own version of the piccata and in doing so, got himself in a deep "piccata". The "expert" judge, a guy called Tom Colicchio went on lambasting him about how he didn't know the basics and how chicken piccata was a classic that everyone should know.

He then went on the correct Ryan and say that Chicken Piccata is chicken dredged in flour and eggs - no breadcrumbs. What I thought was funny was Anthony Boudain (chef extraordinaire) was agreeing with him on TV. He successfully managed to tell every naive TV audience a totally wrong fact about classical cooking.

I am hence going to set the record right now:
1) There is NO "Classic Chicken Piccata" - there is only "Classic Veal Piccata" - the Chicken version is a North American version and cannot be considered "classic" at all. So Mr. Colicchio please stop calling corrupted North American versions of European dishes "classical".
2) Chicken Piccata has NO EGG. A piccata is simply pounded breast of chicken dredged in flour and cooked in butter. When you add egg to the dish, it becomes a "Chicken Fried Steak" that you find in America.
3) The part that Mr. Colicchio was correct about was that there is no breadcrumbs in the Piccata. When you add breadcrumbs, the dish becomes a Milanese or similar to a Schnitzel.

Hopefully that has set the Piccata record straight. Hopefully, millions of readers will read this blog and no longer be under the impression that Piccata has eggs!