Why Not Chicken Francese?
And other Italian-American specialities I see missing from L.A. restaurants.
What’s up, ya’ll? It’s Friday, and it’s my god damn birthday.
Did you know that I share a birthday with Cameron Poe (one of the worst made up names I’ve heard in my life) from the 1997 film Con Air?
Con Air is an awful, awesome, terrible, great, very bad movie. People still don’t know what accent Nicholas Cage is doing (I call it amnesia-Southern). I think cocaine is actually listed as one of the official writers, and the score sounds like it was composed by a mullet.
A few years back, I celebrated my birthday by having a brunch screening with a group of friends, and it was a raucous good time. This early Summer blockbuster has become somewhat of a tradition in my life. So, the move today is to watch Con Air and turn my brain off for a while. I hope you’ll join me.
A Roundup of Bylines
It’s been a busy week, and as I prepare to drive across the country, I’ve had plenty of writing assignments to finish up here in Los Angeles.
I spoke with Jeff Strauss of Jeff’s Table fame about what he’s doing to keep sandwich costs low in the face of rising inflation.
I wrote about chefs’ (and my own) disdain for fake meat.
And a quick little rundown about what makes Salsa Verde Doritos so good. Shout out to all of the July 4th parties I’ve attended for having great chips. Salsa Verde was a theme this year and I love to see it.
Before we get moving, though. Hey! Subscribe! Pay if you want. If you like what I do, that’s awesome, but I do it for free.
Now, on to a pressing question…
Yo, Where’s All The Chicken Francese in Los Angeles?
It’s a question I’ve asked myself a lot recently. I remember cooking chicken Francese (meaning chicken French) often at all of the Italian-American restaurant jobs I had growing up. It was on every single menu. But, the more I pontificate upon this dish, the more I realize that I rarely, if ever, see it out West.
With the resurgence of Italian-American/Continental-centric restaurants, we have also seen some flagship dishes reintroduced, some of them with raised prices. Chicken marsala for $35 (jfc) at the newly owned La Dolce Vita in Beverly Hills, and the clams casino at Dear Jane come to mind. Menus are now littered with words I thought were only uttered at country clubs in 2005, words like “amandine” and “rollatini.”
And I don’t hate it. If anything, I find comfort in the fact that trends are cyclical. Dishes that once seemed antiquated are suddenly haute again. I remember when penne a la vodka was seen as too basic, but suddenly it’s all people want. As a result, the beloved “red sauce joint” is now more prevalent than ever.
Amid this widespread resurgence, however, there are certain dishes I’ve noticed missing from these menus, and I’m just now learning that it’s not because they’ve been forgotten, it’s because they’re simply regional delicacies.
Chicken Francese is an East Coast Thing
The reason I saw so much chicken Francese working at restaurants in Western Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio is because the dish has origins in Rochester, New York. You also see it quite often in New York City at places like Michael’s of Brooklyn and Bamonte’s. Francese is decidedly East Coast, but the dish also spread to the Mid-Atlantic and parts of the Midwest. Quite noticeably, however, it’s missing from menus in Los Angeles. The migration stopped for reasons I can only speculate on, but it’s partly because the dish might be too old-fashioned.
Even at transcendently out-of-date, bad restaurants like Palermo in Los Feliz, chicken Francese isn’t there. They do have something called shrimp alla becky, though, and it looks horrifying (pasta with a side of peas?) The fact that I don’t see Francese at any old school Italian restaurants leads me to believe that it just never took the fantastic voyage to L.A.
And maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe there’s just too many chicken dishes. Picatta and Milanese (especially Milanese on a sandwich) are getting tons of love these days, so is there really a need for an egg-battered, kind of grey looking chicken entree? Francese is a bit redundant, and if you’re a restaurant group looking to capitalize on the red sauce joint trend, it’s an easy dish to cut.
Tips If You Want To Make Francaise
Francese is a dish I’ve cooked hundreds of times. It’s simply flour and egg battered chicken breast, then a piccata-like sauce (without capers) made with lemon, chicken stock, white wine, and butter. Garlic is optional but not at all necessary. Take a break from slicing garlic for once. Treat your fingertips right.
This New York Times recipe is a great guideline, but the dish freestyles easily. If you’re in the business of making chicken broth at home, freezing some is also a clutch move so that you can do things exactly like this.
One of the only things I’d add to this recipe is that I was taught to put a few tablespoons of chopped parsley into the egg mixture itself. The chicken breasts become littered with a lovely green color, and it makes the whole dish that much more appealing. Also, never a bad idea to finish the whole thing with a drizzle of good olive oil and a generous shaving of Parmigiano Reggiano. We can all agree the above picture looks dope. Tastes good, too.
Two more dishes I also don’t see: Stuffed banana peppers and greens & beans.
If you haven’t had stuffed banana peppers, I can’t reccomend enough. Take a look at these guys I made a few years back with leftover prime rib trimmings, breadcrumb, anchovy, and parm.
Stuffed banana peppers aren’t a dish you see outside of a specific region of the United States, but to the Italian residents that live in Buffalo, New York, this is undoubtedly a classic. There’s a bunch of different ways to make it, but it’s usually a stuffing made from cheese, breadcrumb, anchovy, herbs, and optional meat. I’ll do a meatless recipe this Summer, as hot banana peppers will be in season back home.
And then there’s greens & beans. This was also a regular appetizer made with escarole, cannelloni beans, garlic, oil, Parmigiano, and garnished with a fried banana pepper on top (that part of the country loves banana peppers, dude). I haven’t seen a menu with greens & beans in years.
In all of the updated, modern Italian-American restaurants that aim to recreate the dining experiences of the 80’s and 90’s, none of them seem to feature any of these regional dishes. And I’m not saying they have to. Shoot, I don’t even know if they’d really sell all that well. I think the answer is that some of these dishes needed to be left behind because they don’t fit seamlessly into the present-day palate. They’re clunky, a bit odd, and don’t express the culture of modern taste.
Though, I firmly believe that stuffed banana peppers could take off in a place like Los Angeles. It’s got everything people crave here—spice, meat, and copious amounts of red sauce. We love our grilled and fried peppers here in L.A. Taco trucks serve plenty of grilled Anaheims, serranos, and jalapeños, and many restaurants around town serve fried shishitos as an appetizer, too.
Italian stuffed banana peppers rock, and if anybody wants to get in on it, I think it could be a dish that does well here.
Though, it won’t be me. I’m out of the game.
I leave next Wednesday on a cross country road trip back to New Castle, Pennsylvania for the Summer. On the way, I’m making stops in Salt Lake City, Denver, and Davenport. If you have any great food recommendations, please, I’d love to know the move!
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In-n-Out’s fries are the worst. A lot of people say you have to order them animal-style and they’re amazing, but your basically just covering over a product that’s bad to begin with. We have so many good fries in Chicago. I love the fries at Superdawg and Fatso’s the most. Excited to hear the results of the chili cheese fry research!
This article feels particularly relevant to your post: https://ny.eater.com/2023/7/11/23785958/best-new-york-french-fries?ref=PRH726FA5F59FAD&linkid=PRH726FA5F59FAD&cdi=6FDBBE48948A9946E0534FD66B0A5C86&template_id=30083&aid=randohouseinc44163-20&cid=184694&mid=2826443737