About cooking something new

[kellan_the_tabby]

1) Read the recipe. No, again. Again. Make sure you have the entire clue, not just half of it.

2) Check to see if you have the ingredients. Not just 'parsley', but 'fresh parsley'.

3) If it calls for 'chicken cutlets' but talks about said cutlets, read what it says, too. If they're supposed to be an eve quarter-inch thick? The ones from the grocery store might just not cut it.

4) Prep the ingredients first. A good chef might have the brain cells to remember to make chicken broth while dealing with chicken cutlets that are too thick, but that doesn't mean I will. Also? Juicing lemons causes lemon juice. Everywhere.

5) It says 'softened butter' for a reason. Reread #4. Twice.

6) When it works out anyway? Have a glass of wine, and enjoy.

Comments

[kellan_the_tabby]

I was using a lemon reamer. Just...well...incompetently.

Thanks for the tips. Next time, perhaps more of the lemon juice will go where it's told...

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

Even with a lemon reamer, the knife circle thing helps a great deal.

(For piccata, I find that lemon zest in the breading works far better for flavor than any amount of juice. Panko or matzoh meal are better than bread crumbs...)

[kellan_the_tabby]

Hm...my recipe called for dredging the chicken in flour, not breading it...

What recipe do you use? I might as well mess around with a couple variants, if I'm gonna be learning to cook anyway...

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

Recipe? My girlfriend, R, refers to what I do as "freelancing". Recipes? Hmmm.

For chicken piccata, I season white flour with salt, pepper, oregano and lemon zest. Lots of lemon zest. A quick egg bath for the chicken, roll in flour. If I wanted breaded on top of that (which I have not done - I'm not sure why I thought you were breading the thing), I would do a quick dredge in plain flour, egg wash, and use seasoned panko with the salt, pepper, oregano and lemon zest. If I was in a mood, I'd either add thyme and marjoram, or substitute those for oregano. My spicing is haphazard sometimes. Now I'm thinking tarragon, just a little. Hmmm. But I haven't done that.

Since I don't eat chicken, I'd be making this for someone else. I'd saute in a half extra-virgin olive oil (for flavor and higher smoke-point) and half butter (for sheer yummy). If feeling fancy, I'd saute some shallots in that cooking fat first - to a dark brown, and remove. After cooking, I'd deglaze the pan with marsala wine or a good quality sherry - with more lemon zest and the remaining flour/mixture to thicken, adding the lemon juice at the last minute. If you don't have marsala or sherry, a decent vermouth is good with lemon sauces.

Top with the very brown shallots, and a good spoonful of the reduced sauce.

That's how I recall making it. Except I rarely have shallots, so it's always onion. :-)

[kellan_the_tabby]

Oh, that sounds _really_ good.

It's actually fairly similar to what I did, now that I read through it again. I used chicken stock instead of the wine, didn't spice the flour any (though I did salt-and-pepper the chicken before dredging it; your method strikes me as much easier). I _did_ have shallots, though I usually don't; those didn't go in until after the chicken was done, though, and they stayed in the whole time.

I didn't use lemon zest; what I did do was slice half a lemon thin, and put it in right after I took the chicken out. Also made it quite lemony. The other half of that lemon was what produced the flying-lemon-juice.

Oh, and I didn't dip the chicken in egg before dreding it in the flour. But, other than that, very similar...

(She says, after a laundry list of differences...)

Thanks! Now I have more clue about how to mess with the recipe.

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

Food geekery. Delete if you hate it.

Spicing the flour mixture has two advantages. It is easier, and it allows you to premix, so there is a more even layer of spicing. Chicken stock is good - but I like the wine flavors even more.

The shallots/onions would be pre-cooked, just to flavor the oil. They have to come out so they won't burn.

Slicing and putting in the lemon is good - either way you want the lemon oil in the zest to come out. Putting the rounds in will do that, although not as much. The juice's flavor evaporates and can diminish. That's why I suggested adding the juice at the last minute.

An egg layer makes the covering stick, and is a bit crunchier. The classic forms are either egg-wash plus flour, or for a bread crumb crust (which is not really piccata) flour, then egg wash, then bread crumbs.

Yes, I hack in the kitchen. Things get strange. :-)

[kellan_the_tabby]

Cool! Thanks for the info.