crispy hearts of palm cutlets

These crispy rafts are a vegetarian’s dream. Send them sailing with whatever your imagination can conjure.

Use them anywhere and in any way that one would use chicken cutlets, or fried fish fillets.

Think hearts of palm parmesan, marsala, Francese, Florentine, Picatta, or a simple schnitzel.

What you’ll need

• 1 or more cans whole hearts of palm (5-6 pieces per can, each makes 1 cutlet)

• flour for dredging

• beaten egg for coating

• the breading of your choice—see below for some ideas

• oil for frying, such as olive, avocado, sunflower, ghee, or coconut oil. Choose your oil according to the flavor of your dish. Try olive for Mediterranean recipes, coconut oil for South East Asian recipes, ghee for Indian dishes … you get the idea.

The method is easy, except for one thing—these cutlets want desperately to fall apart until you’ve got them in the pan.

But, with a gentle hand, you can win the challenge.

Here’s how

• Place one hearts of palm cylinder from the can onto your cutting board. Using the heel of your hand, press down on the cylinder to flatten it out. Press hard enough to force it to flatten, but gently enough so that it holds together. Repeat with the rest of your cylinders.

• In a flat dish, beat one egg with a splash of water, a squeeze of lemon, or a dash of soy sauce.

• We’re going to do the flour—egg wash—breading routine.

• Sprinkle some all-purpose flour on a plate. Use a thin spatula to lift and transfer one flattened hearts of palm onto the flour. Generously sprinkle it with more flour.

• Again using a thin spatula, lift it from the flour and set it down in the egg. Use a spoon to spoon the egg wash over the top of the cutlet.

• Remember—egg and flour mixed together make glue. Use that to your advantage if your cutlet is falling apart. Once you get them fully breaded, they’ll hold together better.

• On another plate, have your breading spread out. Carefully lift the cutlet out of the egg with the spatula and let any excess drip off. Then gently lay it down on top of the breading and cover the top with more breading.

• Heat oil in a skillet until it’s quite hot, but not smoking.

• Transfer the hearts of palm from the breading into the oil. You may want to wipe the accumulated breading off the edge of the spatula first. Once the cutlet has browned on the bottom, carefully turn it and brown it on the other side. Then transfer it to paper towels to drain.

• You can serve them as is with your favorite condiment, or use in another dish.

Change the dish by changing the breading.

• fine breadcrumbs, seasoned or plain

• panko, seasoned or plain

• breadcrumbs combined with fine almond flour

• breadcrumbs combined with ground nuts—try almonds, walnuts, pecans, hazelnuts, pistachios …

• cracker crumbs or matzo meal

• breadcrumbs combined with cornmeal

• cornflake crumbs

Note: If you’re using ground nuts, I recommend blending them with dry breadcrumbs in order to have your cutlets come out crispy.