A breading preparation flavored with parsley, inspired by the traditional recipe for Palermo-style cutlet, but which precisely because of its simplicity can be used on virtually any dish.
Let's talk about breading and gratin
We could title this paragraph, breading, gratin and more. What do a gratin dish, a breaded dish, soft white bread with its brown, crunchy crust have in common? In addition to delighting our palate, these foods have in common the chemistry behind the covering of the gratin, the crunchy breading and the crust of bread and other baked products. These chemical processes were studied by a French doctor and chemist, so much so that his name was given to the reaction known as the Maillard reaction. The gratin or, to use the Italian language, au gratin, in particular is a cooking technique that aims to obtain the crunchy and tasty crust on the surface of the dish but maintaining a softer and moister underlying heart.
Where to use Palermo-style gratin breading
As we anticipated, it is the recipe for the Palermitana cutlet that inspired this gratin preparation, the Palermo cutlet is lighter than other versions of the cutlet because it uses neither eggs nor butter but only breadcrumbs flavored with parsley and pecorino. The Palermo-style gratin breading preparation consists only of breadcrumbs, wheat flour and parsley.
Apart from the Palermo-style cutlet, you can use this gratin breading on practically any gratin dish you can think of, whether vegetable or fish. For example, one of the recipes for mussels au gratin requires only breadcrumbs and parsley, the same goes for artichokes au gratin. Obviously many other spices can be added to the breadcrumbs, essentially all the ones you love and there are those who include garlic in the recipes, but the latter is not loved by everyone, however the Palermo-style gratin breading being flavored with only parsley should be appreciated by everyone and therefore safe if you have guests whose tastes you don't know but tastier than simple breadcrumbs alone.