Milanesa

Method

1. prep10 min
   cutlets pounded thin, dried, salted; three stations set
   the cutlets pounded between plastic to an even quarter inch — thinness is the dish: a milanesa cooks in the time its crust takes to brown, and a thick one burns its coat waiting for its center — then dried, salted, and the line built: flour, eggs beaten with the garlic paste and a pinch of salt, crumbs
2. prep8 min
   flour, garlic egg, crumbs — pressed, then 10 minutes of rest
   each cutlet through the sequence, the crumbs pressed on with flat hands — and the rest on a rack, the chicken-fried-steak lesson repeated across the hemisphere: a hydrated coat fries as a skin, a fresh one flakes off in the oil
3. fry8 min
   350°F shallow oil, 2-3 min a side, one cutlet at a time
   each milanesa into the hot oil, turned once at deep gold — fast is the whole contract, the meat cooked through in the same minutes the crust needs; racked, never papered, salted while glistening
4. top3 min
   lime over everything, the table decides the rest
   lime squeezed hard over the hot crust — the acid against the fried richness is the Mexican reading's whole thesis — with the fried egg on top for the 'a caballo' faction; and the leftover milanesa's destiny is already written two entries away, in the catalog's torta