Chicken breast

The breast is pounded so that it fries evenly and relatively quickly and  not to turn the breast into a pancake or to see how thin it can go.

The chicken breast is patted with flour, the excess flour patted off. This lightly coats the chicken and helps the batter adhere. But the batter isn't made yet.

Milk added to seasoned flour to make a batter. The excess batter is drained off, pulled off, flicked off, or shaken off in a wire basket before being dropped into preheated hot oil. The thinner the breast is pounded then the thinner the batter coating otherwise the chicken will be lost in the fried coating. I learned over time that very little batter goes a long way. I pull it off manually using my fingers as a squeegees to get most of the batter off.

A trace amount of this baking powder will lighten the batter, say 1/4 teaspoon or so. Too much baking powder will foam and that is undesirable for batter. You can also lighten the batter with beer, or not lighten the batter at all.