CHICKEN PARMIGIANA 101

Posted in Poultry by sallybr

When a person has a cookbook addiction, planning meals can be stressful. Like a dog with five balls to fetch, I go from one cookbook to another, saying to myself “this might be pretty good“, or “wow, I’ve got to make this one instead“… But, the thing is that the meals we love to eat, the ones we crave the most, are not from cookbooks. When I ask my husband what he’d like to have for dinner, he often says “you haven’t made chicken parmiggiana in a while“…. The truth is, I sometimes ask the question hoping for exactly that answer, as I also love it and crave it. My Mom used to make some type of parmiggiana all the time, chicken, beef, so I have lots of fond memories. Once I started making it for my own family, they also loved it, closing a wonderful cycle.

This post is written with a special someone in mind, my youngest stepson who is in college and starting to cook for himself and for friends. He’s had my chicken parmiggiana many times, I know he’l love to make it, so I’ll be going through every step showing exactly how I do it, in a Crash-Course: Chicken Parmiggiana 101.

Alex, this one’s for you! 😉

CHICKEN PARMIGGIANA
(family recipe; step by step photos after the jump)

3 boneless chicken breasts, preferably organic

salt and pepper

2 eggs, beaten with 2T water and a pinch of salt

1 cup flour

1 cup bread crumbs

1/4 cup vegetable oil

2 cups tomato sauce (bottled or homemade)

shredded cheese (mozzarella or another melting cheese of your choice)

Butterfly the chicken breasts (see comments for explanation), season both sides with a little salt and pepper. Pound the fillets gently with the flat side of a meat mallet or the handle of a table knife, protecting the meat with plastic (Saran Wrap or similar).

Place three bowls or trays side by side, add flour to the first, season the flour with 1/2 tsp salt and a little black pepper. Add the beaten eggs to the second, and bread crumbs to the third. Coat the chicken fillets with flour, transfer to the egg mixture, coating both sides with it. Allow the excess to drip out, transfer the meat to the bread crumbs tray. Pat the bread crumbs well all over the meat, to make it stick.

Heat vegetable oil in a large frying pan until very hot but not smoking. Fry each piece of chicken on the first side until golden, 90 seconds to 2 minutes. Turn to fry the second side for a similar amount of time. Remove from the oil and place over absorbent kitchen paper to blot excess oil. When all pieces are fried, place them in an oven-proof baking dish or cookie sheet, add tomato sauce and shredded cheese on top.

Place in a 350F oven for 15 minutes. If you like, turn the broiler on high for a couple of minutes to get a nice browning. Serve immediately with cooked pasta in tomato sauce, or any other side dish of your preference.

ENJOY!

to print the recipe, click here

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2Nov2009

BBA#26: POOLISH BAGUETTES

Posted in BBA Challenge, Breads by sallybr

These days the the wonderful aroma of bread is wafting through the Bewitching Kitchen … For those who don’t know about “The BBA Challenge“, a few months ago Nicole, of “Pinch My Salt“, decided to bake every bread from Peter Reinhart’s book “The Bread Baker’s Apprentice“, and sent out a virtual invitation to anyone interested in joining her. It involves forty-three breads in all, made in the order that they appear in the book. Over two hundred people accepted the challenge, including me. It’s been a ton of fun so far, with ups and downs, successes and failures.

Here we are, at recipe number 26: Poolish Baguettes

Poolish is a soft mixture of flour, water and yeast that ferments overnight (or longer) and then gets incorporated into a bread dough. In this recipe, the dough contains both white and whole wheat flour, but the whole wheat is first sifted to remove some of the bran. It’s an interesting method, and here’s all the bran left behind after sifting a few ounces of flour:

Reinhart’s recipe calls for kneading the dough. I prefer folding instead of kneading, so that’s what I did: 3 folding cycles during the initial 2 hours of fermentation. After cutting the dough into three pieces, I shaped each one as a baguette. After two more hours rising, the baguettes were slashed with sharp razor blade, and placed in the oven.

Notice how bubbly the dough was…

Even though my slashing skills still need improvement, this time my shaping wasn’t too bad. There are many online videos showing how to shape a baguette; maybe one day if I get really good at it… I’ll post my own 😉

In the meantime, you can watch a particularly instructive video here….

These baguettes were delicious! I’d probably reduce the proportion of whole wheat in the dough, but this recipe is already a winner for me and my husband.

30Oct2009

BBA#25: PIZZA NAPOLETANA

Posted in BBA Challenge, Breads by sallybr

I was looking forward to this recipe, because for years I’ve been making pizza dough from a recipe published in Fine Cooking; the BBA Challenge gave me the impetus to try something different. Interestingly enough, my usual method is similar to Peter Reinhart’s, but it takes a little less olive oil, and is made in seconds (literally) in the food processor.

Reinhart’s recipe uses a regular mixer (or hand kneading) to make the dough, that then goes into the refrigerator for 1 day. Two hours before making the pizza, he brings the balls of dough to room temperature. In the book you’ll see a photo of Peter himself throwing the dough up in the air like a pro. I was looking forward to giving it a try, but my dough was just too uncooperative. As I prefer to avoid wearing the food that I’m cooking, I stretched it with my hands instead. 😉

Without further ado, some pictures of my pizza adventure!

The dough is supposed to stick to the bottom of the mixer, never clearing it completely…

I made four balls of dough with the full recipe….

And after spending the night in the fridge, they came back for a final rise at room temperature… very soft and bubbly-looking…

Some of the ingredients we chose: mushrooms, tomatoes, black olives, sliced ham, fresh basil… plus the usual suspects (homemade tomato sauce & mozzarella cheese)

Ready for the oven, a mushroom and black olive concoction….

The pizza was good, but both me and my resident food critic prefer the Fine Cooking recipe, which I’ll describe on my blog in the near future.

I should point out that most of the bakers loved this recipe, and you can check two of them at these links:

for “The Other Side of Fifty”, click here….

For TxFarmer and her take on a pine nuts pizza, click here….

Twenty-five recipes down, only eighteen to go!

28Oct2009

A CLASSIC ROAST CHICKEN

Posted in Poultry, Weekend Dinners by sallybr

From Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc at Home…

I confess to a love-hate relationship with roasted chicken: Love to eat it, hate to make it, because some recipes that promised “the best roast chicken you’ll ever eat” gave me only grievance instead. Here are two examples. One famous recipe calls for blasting the bird in a 500F oven, which made an unbelievable mess, set off every smoke alarm in the house, and left a lingering smell of roast chicken for days. I also fell for a recipe that insisted the best way to roast a chicken is to first sear it in a frying pan, and then move it into a hot oven. That method resulted in both the stove AND the oven covered in oily splatter. I dealt with it in the hope of “… the best ever“, but… it wasn’t.

Every recipe in Keller’s book makes me want to jump to the kitchen to start working on it, so I couldn’t resist his take on roast chicken. I’m glad that I didn’t, it was simple to prepare and finished with a happy ending. This recipe is a full meal in itself: you’ll have a nice roast chicken, crispy and moist, with a bonus side dish accompanying it. It was satisfying home-cooking at its best.

(para receita em portugues, clique aqui)

ROAST CHICKEN WITH ROOT VEGETABLES
(adapted from Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc)

1 whole chicken, preferably organic (4 – 4.5 pounds)
2 cloves garlic, mashed
fresh thyme sprigs
salt and pepper
3 rutabagas
2 turnips
6 carrots
12 small yellow or red new potatoes
1/3 cup canola oil
4 T butter at room temperature or 2 T duck fat
1/2 lemon

If you are particularly fond of crispy skin, leave the bird uncovered in the fridge for a couple of days. Remove the chicken from the refrigerator 1.5 hours before roasting (important step, don’t skip it).

Heat the oven to 475F.

Season the chicken inside and out with salt and pepper, add the garlic, 4 thyme sprigs, and the lemon half in the cavity. For a nicer presentation, truss the chicken (see how to do it here, but you may omit this step if you prefer – read my comments).

Cut the rutabagas and turnips in similar sized pieces, about 3/4 inch wedges. Cut the carrots in half crosswise and again lengthwise. Keep the young potatoes whole, or, if they are a bit too big cut them in half. Place all veggies in a large bowl, add 1/4 cup of canola oil, 2-3 thyme sprigs, salt, pepper, and toss well. Transfer them to a roasting pan, make a small space in the center to place the chicken. Rub the remaining canola oil all over the skin of the chicken, seasoning it again with salt and pepper.

Just before roasting, add pats of butter over the breast, or brush with some duck fat (it gives a deeper flavor to the chicken,).

Roast at 475F for 25 minutes, lower the temperature to 400F and roast for 1 hour, but check the internal temperature after 45 minutes, if it reaches 160F remove the chicken from the oven. Allow the chicken to rest under an aluminum foil tent for 20 minutes before carving.

A few minutes before serving, place the roasting dish on the stove and heat the vegetables, moving them around to coat with the juices accumulated during roasting.

Enjoy!

to print the recipe, click here

Jump for final comments and additional photos

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26Oct2009

YES, WE BAKED!

Posted in Breads, General by sallybr

Remember World Bread Day? You can see the breads baked all over the world by going to Zorra’s website. They are all organized by countries, in four different groups. Lots of wonderful loaves of bread!

Check it out here….