How to Make Cafe Cecilia Chef Max Rocha’s Chicken Fillet Roll
By Max RochaI’ve always loved chicken fillet rolls. When I was in my early teens, I used to always go to the car wash with my dad on Sundays – he would buy the papers and a couple of sausage rolls, and I would always get a chicken fillet roll. It always had the same fillings: plain breaded chicken (a good garage would offer plain or spicy chicken), lettuce, cheese, stuffing, butter, red onion, and mayonnaise. We would sit through the car wash eating in silence with the radio on. I’ll always remember those trips.
As I got older, the chicken fillet sandwich became more of a thing I’d eat after a late night out with friends, chatting about how the evening went. Since moving to London, there hasn’t been anywhere that does a chicken fillet roll similar to the ones in Dublin, so now, every St. Patrick’s Day, we offer some to take away from Cafe Cecilia as a nod to our Irish heritage. Every Irish person I know has their preference of fillings, so we’ve had to keep it pretty simple.
Serves 2
Ingredients for chicken and fillings
2 organic skinless chicken breasts
1/4 iceberg lettuce (finely sliced)
1/2 red onion (finely sliced)
2 frozen par-baked baguettes
2 egg yolks
2 whole eggs
100g panko (Japanese bread crumbs)
100g plain white flour
150ml olive oil
100ml sunflower oil
lemon juice
200g butter (softened)
Salt and white pepper
1l rapeseed oil
Chicken brine
30 g sugar
2 garlic cloves
5 sprigs of thyme
4 peppercorns
1l of water
Method:
- The day before you want to eat the rolls, make the brine by combining all the brine ingredients, bring to a boil, and then allow it to cool. Then place your chicken breasts in the brine and place them in the fridge overnight.
- The next day, remove the breasts from the brine.
- To breadcrumb the chicken breasts, first whisk the two whole eggs and place them into a bowl beside a bowl containing the breadcrumbs and another bowl containing flour.
- Carefully place each breast first in the flour, then the egg yolk, and finally the breadcrumbs, then set aside until everything else is ready.
- To make the mayonnaise, place the two egg yolks, a pinch of salt, and the juice of half a lemon in a mixing bowl. Whisk the ingredients together and very slowly incorporate both sunflower oil and olive oil while whisking. Drip in a little oil, whisk; drip in some more oil, whisk, and so on until the mixture emulsifies. Season with salt and white pepper to taste and set aside.
- Cook the baguette according to the manufacturer’s requirements.
- While the bread is cooking, heat rapeseed oil to 180°C and fry the chicken fillets until golden brown. Season with fine salt and then place in a warm oven until you reach an internal temperature of 74°C.
- To serve, slice the warm baguettes in half, heavily butter both sides, slice the chicken breasts, and evenly place them between two baguettes with the lettuce and red onion.
- Top tip: Eat with cheese and onion Tayto crisps for the full Irish experience.
Max Rocha is the head chef of Cafe Cecilia in London.