Are you a recipe hoarder?  Do you have lots of cookbooks, subscribe to food magazines and keep most to all the issues, print off recipes and keep them in a special place, and have a Pinterest recipe board (or boards) composed of hundreds of pins? 

We used our 8-inch skillet to pound the chicken

No?  Oh, well nevermind then.  Forget I asked.  Oh, you might be?  Maybe we can start a club.  This particular recipe comes from my collection of recipes I have hoarded.  I try to eventually get around to them, and I'm glad I got to this one.



Maybe I'm more of a food trend follower than I thought, but the increasingly popular coconut seemed ubiquitous, and I loved how Rachael Ray incorporated it into this dish.  It's quick, easy, and is great for summer or when you're just longing for warmer days. 



I made the pineapple preserves from scratch, and have to confess I overcooked them, but they still worked pretty well.  Drew and I both agreed that we'll be looking forward to making this recipe again. 

Since I didn't want to buy certain ingredients, I modified the recipe a little.  I'll link to the original in the recipe title and post as I made it.

Coconut Chicken Cutlets
from Rachael Ray
to serve 4 or more

8 chicken cutlets, slightly pounded
Salt and pepper
1 cup flour
2 eggs
1 cup panko breadcrumbs
1 cup grated unsweetened coconut
1-2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (EVOO)
1/2 cup pineapple preserves    
1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar 
1-2 tablespoons chicken stock
2 scallions, whites and greens sliced

Pre-heat the oven to 250˚F. Place a cooling rack over a baking sheet and place them in oven. Arrange three shallow dishes: Place about a cup of flour on the first dish for dredging the chicken. Beat the eggs with a splash of water in second dish. Combine the panko breadcrumbs and coconut in the third dish.

Heat a thin layer of EVOO (eyeball it) in a large skillet over medium heat. Season the chicken cutlets with salt and pepper, then coat them in the flour, then the egg and lastly, the breadcrumb-coconut mixture.

Fry the cutlets in two batches until deep golden in color, 3-4 minutes on each side. Keep the chicken crisp in the warm oven and repeat with the remaining chicken.

In a small skillet over medium-high heat, stir together the pineapple preserves, rice wine vinegar, and chicken stock. Reduce until thickened, about 2 minutes. Stir in the scallions. To serve, arrange the chicken on a platter and pour the sauce over the top.

Notes

• Rather than buy chicken cutlets, I used four chicken breasts.  The larger ones, I cut in half (thickness wise) and pounded slightly, and the smaller ones I just pounded out.  
• You can find pineapple preserves at the grocery store with the jelly/jam section, but all the ones I found contained high fructose corn syrup.  As an alternative, I decided to make my own and used this recipe:  Combine 1- 10 oz can crushed pineapple in juice and 1 cup sugar in a medium saucepan.  Heat to boiling over high heat, and cook 20 minutes, stirring constantly until thickened or until mixture reaches 220 degrees on a candy thermometer.  You may need to turn the heat down to med or med-high once it reaches boil.  You do on my burner. 

• We served this with a variation of coconut rice (made with brown rice) mixed with pineapple pieces.  Find the recipe here: http://www.nytimes.com/recipes/6392/coconut-rice.html