When making cutlets of any kind, I have always floured, egged, breadcrumbed. After watching my friend, who is an excellent cook, make cutlets without the flour step, I started asking around and it seems the jury is split. Some people use flour and some skip flour.
I can’t seem to taste enough of a difference stay committed to my way, but it is hard for me to break tradition without some reasoning behind it. Its so much easier to skip the flour and soak all the cutlets in egg so you don’t need to dip, dip, dip individually.
So I logged into a cooking forum and I asked, “Does anyone know the actual purpose of flouring cutlets before putting them in the egg?”
The responses ranged but were all very good and thoughtful.
The consensus seems to be that the flour provides something for the egg to stick to (a problem I did not encounter) and without it the breadcrumbs have a tendency to separate from the meat when cooking or cooked (This did in fact happen during testing) But that if you really wanted to skip the step then to make sure you let the cutlets soak in the egg for 15-20 minutes. (I did do this so that makes sense why the breadcrumbs stuck during dipping)
So there I have it. Its optional but there is a reason to flour. But in a rush, it can be done with out the flour, but you have to be a bit more gentle with the meat.