In Chicken News Today

Picture source: Wikipedia

I have never made chicken piccata, but Katie has and she gave me some tips I'd like to share with you. Wikipedia tells me that piccata is an Italian technique whereby you prepare a meat by slicing it, sauteing it and then serving it with a sauce that is made with lemon, butter and spices, which usually means parsley.

These are the steps that Katie took to make her version:

Step 1:

She mixed her dry ingredients. I bet seasoned bread crumbs would work well here.

Then she prepared the chicken cutlets by spraying them with an oil spray and she covered them with the dry mixture.

Step 2:

She sauteed the cutlets. Here is a tip I attribute to Michael Symon and was confirmed last night in a cooking class: don't waste your olive oil on cooking. Use a blended oil (a mixture of cheap olive oil and a neutral oil) or just use a neutral oil. Leave the good stuff for finishing a plate.

When the cutlets were almost ready, Katie squeezed lemon juice over them. Yum! That sounds good.

Step 3:

This is when it gets intense. Are you ready? When the cutlets were cooked, Katie set them aside. She added ten lemon slices, chicken stock and more lemon juice to a separate pot to make her sauce. When the sauce had reduced she dressed her chicken with it. Tada! Chicken Piccata!!

This sounds great. I want to make this soon, along with the recipe I picked up from my cooking class on how to roast a chicken perfectly. Here is the trick: you don't need butter. All you need is a little kosher salt and time. Salt your chicken for a few hours, then take it out and let it get to room temperature and then pop it in the oven at 450 F. You can stuff it with a lemon if you want, but you don't need to add aromatics until the last five minutes or so. Try these tips and be amazed.

Michael Symon Inspired Last Night's Dinner

Picture source: Cooking Channel

Sometimes you follow a recipe and sometimes, you don't. I watch a lot of cooking shows because I love food and I love to learn. I often do go to the show's website to grab the recipe, but sometimes just a vague idea sticks around and inspires me. A few weeks ago I watched the chicken episode of How to Cook Like an Iron Chef. When it came time to make dinner last night I plucked this idea from the air: Chicken legs, fingerling potatoes, leeks, braise and I think it was inspired by this.

This is how I brought everything together. First I put salted water to boil, actually Joey did that for me. Then I cut the two leeks and four small potatoes. The leeks were cut lengthwise and then in half to create a nice surface area for searing and I left them about the length of the potatoes. The potatoes I only cut lenthwise and then par-boiled them. I warmed some garlic slices in olive oil before starting the searing, I removed them when they were starting to get golden and put them in a bowl.

Joey cleaned the chicken and I dried and seasoned it with salt and pepper and a very fine coating of flour. The chicken was seared first, then the leeks, then the potatoes. Lastly, I placed everything in a large deep pan, including the golden slices of garlic and added chicken stock, covering it only half way. I seasoned everything with a pinch of oregano and salt and pepper. I let it simmer away until everything was super flavorful and tender. It was a rich and hearty meal and even though it tasted like a million bucks, it only cost about ten. Now that's what I call a bright idea!

Tomatillo Salsa, Encore

Yes, eating this is messy, but also tasty.

There was a lot of tomatillo salsa left over from last week, so Joey and I made skirt steak with some nice fixings. You can go here for the recipe. It is from Michael Symon's How to Cook Like an Iron Chef.

Look at what a great job Joey did grilling!