Ok, so let's say you're cooking 8-10 lbs of boned chicken breast, that's flattened, breaded and pan fried. This narrows the focus, thanks. Let's assume you're aiming for half pound servings or 16 to 20 pieces. And if I'm reading it right, you're cutting each breast in half, so 32 to 40 pieces. And this is dinner so eating around 6 pm. You're getting about 5 pieces in the pan. Let's use 4 and call that 1 batch. 32 pcs = 8 batches, 40 = 10 batches. Criminy, that's a lot of pan frying. Let's give it a whirl.
But first. . . consider using
a higher smoke point oil -- any vegetable oil except olive oil. Olive oil is very flavorful and might ah, "flavor" the chicken. You want to fry the cutlets in oil at about 350°-375°F so Canola Oil (a blended oil) is cheap, plentiful and great for this use. Any vegetable oil will work -- refer to the chart.
You're using bacon fat. Fair enough, but I don't think it's the best fat to cook breaded meats. Here's why. Bacon's
Smoke Point is about 25°F lower than what you need to cook breaded meats. So in order to cook breaded chicken to crispy goodness, you have burn the bacon grease. It's also high in saturated fats -- a Bozo No-No according to everyone's doctor. Don't get me wrong, I love bacon and eat it at least once a week, but I don't re-use bacon grease.
More on bacon grease uses here. And yes, he does say you can cook meats in bacon grease -- just not breaded meats.
Back to cooking large quantities of breaded chicken breast.
1. Enlist the aid of a helper. Your efforts will be appreciated much more if there is a witness in the kitchen with you. One of the older kids may be interested. If not, find an adult who wants to eat. Don't use a kid who's not interested.
2. Set up everything you're going to need (
Mise en Place) -- the pans, utensils, seasonings, breading station, work stations etc. Or at least set up to cut, then flatten the breast, then clean up and set up the breading stations, fry pans and warming oven.
Watch and consider
this method of cutting then flattening the breast from J. Kenzi Lopez-alt. I think you'll get the thickness more even that way, and that means your cooking times will be more uniform batch to batch. You can cut and flatten the breasts and cut them in smaller pieces the day before or the morning of and put them back in the fridge in a container or plastic bag until it's time to cook.
3. You need 2.5 to 3 minutes per side for each batch, let's say 6 minutes total. So it'll be about a half hour to cook 8 batches in two pans, and about 50 minutes for 10 batches in two pans. This is good news. It means you can hold batches 1 - 7 or 9 in the oven without losing much in the way of crispness. Just don't make a dog pile of them if you have the room. Consider laying some parchment paper on a sheet pan and spread the cutlets over as much area as you have. If you need to, use two oven pans rather than pile the cutlets on top of one another. Or, do it the Japan way -- stack the fried food on its edge against one another, instead of on the flat side.
4. Keep the batches in a warm oven -- around 200°F until ready to serve. You can save yourself a bit of clean up if you have an oven safe platter large enough to hold all the cutlets. Then just stick that in the oven and stack the cutlets on their edges on it and use mitts to bring it to the table. If you take the mitts away, it prevents hungry people from grabbing the platter -- they actually have to ask someone to put a few cutlets on their plate. It's also good to have the other foods (except bread) on the table first. Then bring the bread and cutlets to the table at the same time. Ask me how I know
I hope this helps!
