impulse 101

You'll need: boneless skinless chicken thighs, buttermilk, creole seasoning, your favorite garlic powder, MSG, paprika and/or chipotle seasoning, black pepper, two ziplock bags, flour, panko bread crumbs, and oil. If you want it to stay extra crispy longer, get wheat dextrin (theres a brand called EverCrisp you can buy online) and mix it in during the breading.

Take the chicken thighs and butterfly them (most grocery bought ones are pre-cut so you can seperate them). Cut several 1-inch slits into the chicken front and back. Generously season both sides with the dry seasoning and pat them gently until both sides are covered. I used a tablespoon of each, mixed it in a bowl, and it covered 8 pieces, front and back.

Place the chicken thighs in the ziplock bags and with either your hand or a rolling pin or whatever you got, flatten the chicken until the ziplock bag is almost paper thin in width. They should be flat enough for just a bit of light to pass through. Add 1 ½ cups of buttermilk into each of the bags being careful not to overflow out of the opening. Close em up and let sit in the fridge for at least two hours.

Mix 1 cup flour, 2 teaspoons of each dry seasoning, 1 cup of panko bread crumbs, and an extra teaspoon of black pepper into a bowl (or another Ziploc,) and drop your marinated chicken, buttermilk soaked and all, into the mixture and fully coat the pieces in breading

Put your oil in a pan and heat it to medium high. For the amount I never measure that well I typically just use enough to reach my first pinky knuckle and because of how thin the chicken gets thats usually enough to submerge. Once the oil is heated, start dunking the pieces in. Put them into the oil and cook 5 min on each side

Let the pieces rest for 2 minutes. Enjoy on its own, on a sandwich, on rice, they're cutlets, go crazy.

Now two things to note:

One, a few of the seasonings are redundant (creole seasoning usually has garlic powder in it already) because I like to get extra flavor in at every step. A salt free creole seasoning blend can help cut the saltiness down

this behavior is nothing new. the global south and everything in it - the people, the culture, our heritage - is seen as nothing more than a decoration or commodity to colonizers. i don't even need to bring up the koh i noor or the entire british museum; these examples are recent and egregious enough on their own.