Deck's Chicken Parmesan

Some evenings call for a quick and easy meal, but that doesn't mean that flavor has to be sacrificed (something I now understand).  Tonight was one of those evenings, so I broke out one of my sure fire, simple and delicious recipes; Chicken Parmesan.  I'll admit that I cheated a little bit on this one, using a pre-made sauce instead of doing my own.  As my cooking evolves, so to will this recipe.  But for now, it is a great flavorful dish for the working professional.

Deck's Chicken Parmesan


Serves 2 (with some leftovers)


Ingredients:

2 Bone-in, Skin-On Chicken Breasts
1/4 - 1/2 cup of Italian Seasoned Bread Crumbs
2 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
3 Tbsp Butter
Salt and Pepper
3 cups Marinara Sauce (I prefer the Whole Foods 365 Brand)
1/4 cup Balsamic Vinegar
1/4 cup buttermilk blue cheese
1/2 cup Shredded Parmesan cheese
Angel Hair Pasta or Spaghetti

Step 1:  Heat the oil over medium-high heat in a skillet or pan that you will be able to place in the oven.  At the same time, preheat your oven to 350, and put some salted water on to boil for your pasta.


Step 2:  Remove the bone and skin from the chicken.  Then season with some salt and pepper.

Cook's note:  I prefer to purchase the bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts feeling that these help keep the chicken breasts nice and moist (not to mention being a little cheaper).  I also try and avoid freezing the chicken so that it doesn't lose any of the natural moisture.

Step 3:  Melt the butter in a dish that will be big enough to lay the chicken breasts in.  While the butter is in the microwave, combine the blue cheese, balsamic vinegar and marinara sauce in a sauce pan over medium heat.  You can also add any type of herbs here (I prefer oregano and basil), as well as some fresh ground black pepper.

Step 4:  Brush a little bit of the melted butter on each side of the chicken breast.  You just want to put a thin layer on.  Add the bread crumbs to the remaining butter and mix together.

Step 5:  Coat the chicken breasts in the bread crumbs, and add to the heated oil.  Cook for about 2 minutes, and then flip over (you want to cook just long enough to brown the bread crumbs, but not cook all the way through).  Cook for another minute, and put directly into the pre-heated oven.

This would be a good time to put your pasta in the water as well.

Step 6:  After about five minutes, pull the pan out of the oven, and pour the sauce directly over the chicken breasts.  Put the pan back in the oven.

Step 7:  After another 5 minutes, pull the pan out, add the cheese, and put back in the oven long enough to melt the cheese.

To serve:  Remove from the oven.  Put some of the pasta on the plate.  Add some of the sauce directly to the pasta.  Then place a chicken breast on top of the pasta, add cheese to your taste, and enjoy!

Grillin' Seattle Style

Without a doubt, my favorite food is steak.  And, in my mind, there is no better way to cook it than on a grill.  But sometimes that can be challenging.  Our kitchen is on the second floor and the grill is in the back yard.  This means if I want to grill I either have to walk down the stairs through the hallway and the office to get to the back yard to man the grill, or we have to eat out on the back patio.  The first becomes challenging when I am cooking other things not on the grill and am running up and down the stairs.  The second is fine with one exception...we live in Seattle.  This means that for at least six to nine months out of the year, it is either dark, cold or rainy (and usually some combination of the 3) which are not ideal for eating outside.  

Up until tonight, when I wanted a steak I would either brave the elements and darkness to cook outside, or use a sort of double sided skillet/grill for the stove.  Cooking outdoors in inclement weather is not ideal because I don't want to track things into the house, and in the darkness it is difficult to see the food in order to check for doneness.  And with the skillet/grill plate, it took up two burners on the stove which made it challenging if I was cooking a couple of sides, and the temperature was difficult to maintain since there was always a part of it not directly on the heat.  Not to mention I couldn't put anything directly on it.  I made this mistake once and ended up using steel wool and scrubbing away the coating on the metal.  So, what was different about tonight?  Enter the Calphalon Grill Pan.

The Calphalon Grill Pan is fantastic.  It is small enough that I can place it on one burner, but large enough to accommodate plenty of meat as well as regulate the temperature.  It has the raised grill ridges, but is made of a non-stick surface that nicely releases the meat to flip without the need to heavily oil or spray the pan.  And, it allows me to grill my steaks inside, upstairs during inclement weather and darkness like I experienced tonight.  When we got this pan for our wedding, I had a feeling it was going to be the first thing that I tried.

Usually when I do a steak dinner, I like to keep things simple.  My preferred cut of meat is a rib eye, followed by a New York Strip.  I always buy my meat at Whole Foods because of the level of quality I know I'm going to get (though I bet if I searched enough I could find a butcher with even higher quality meat).  At Whole Foods they do a great job, cutting nice thick steaks that are well marbled and incredibly flavorful.  On most days I go with the "regular" steaks, but on days when I want to splurge I go with the dry-aged.  There is nothing like a dry-aged rib eye to put a smile on my face.  For dinner tonight, I opted for the New York Strip because they happened to be on special.  

In preparing my steaks, I don't do anything particularly special.  I first put on some Montreal Steak Seasoning (hands down the best I've used).  It is primarily sea salt and black peppercorns, with a little bit of garlic and other seasonings.  For Jennifer's steak I sprinkle it on and rub it in.  For mine, I add it much more liberally and press it down into the meat with the goal being to create a sort of crust when it is cooked.  It will be a little saltier and have a little more of a pepper kick.  Then I brushed a little bit of extra virgin olive oil on both sides (you can do the olive oil first and then the spices).  I put her steak on first as she likes it medium, and wait a little bit before adding mine.  One of the tricks to a great steak is to not move it around that much.  Put it on one side, let it cook, flip it, and let it cook.  Sometimes I'll do a quick flip just to put the cross grill marks on, but that's just for looks.  Then, take it out and let it rest for at least five minutes.  I learned this from watching multiple cooking shows and you do it for good reason.  By letting it rest, the juices stay in the meat, and it stays nice and moist while you eat it.  if you cut into a steak right away, the juices flow out, and then meat tends to dry out.

To accompany the steaks, I made some steamed white rice (Asian style in the rice cooker) and sauteed some sliced red pepper in olive oil, salt, pepper, and a splash of balsamic vinegar.  I also made up a honey dijon vinaigrette to accompany the steaks.  The thing is, we never used it because both of us prefer to just have a very well-cooked steak that doesn't need any type of steak sauce or anything.  In fact, if I'm putting steak sauce on a steak, someone screwed up. 

I am super excited about the Grill Pan.  I do still need to figure out how to maximize it a little bit more.  I don't think I got it quite hot enough, which led to Jennifer's steak being a little closer to medium rare, and mine a little closer to rare, though the came out much better than when I used the skillet/grill plate.  The amount of smoke generated was less than previous methods, and I was able to cook directly on the pan without the need for an aluminum foil liner.  Many more meals will definitely be cooked this way, at least until we get a couple of sunny afternoons.

True Comfort...A meal that is perfect as is.

Today for Easter we decided to take advantage of the stormy weather in Seattle, and head to the slopes. With rumors of 16" of fresh snow in the last 48 hours, we had to get in one last ski day.  So, what does this mean from a food perspective?  Starbucks for breakfast, lodge food for lunch, quick easy comfort food for dinner.  It's kind of our ritual; there's something almost comforting about it.

Starbucks is one of those reliable breakfast stops.  It's not anything super special, but you always know what you are going to get.  I got the Komodo Dragon blend (still prefer the Pike Place Roast), the reduced fat berry coffee cake and a yogurt parfait.  All in all a good healthy and filling way to get started for a day on the slopes.

After a few hours skiing in what turned out to be probably the best conditions we've skied all year, we headed into one of the lodges up at Steven's Pass for lunch.  I'm not sure what the name of it is, but if you are coming down the front side, it is on the one on the far right.  Now, some ski resorts have fantastic restaurants in their lodges.  Steven's Pass unfortunately does not.  We ended up going to the pizza place in the lounge and ordering the combo.  This consisted of an ok piece of pizza (though not as good as even Digiorno), and a "caesar salad" that was pretty much a pile of lettuce with a sprinkle of parmesan cheese and a watered down dressing.  Quite disappointing actually, and next time we will probably go back to our usual fair of chicken alfredo or chili.

But enough of the other things for the day.  The point of this post is not the skiing or the disappointing lunch, but actually our dinner.  Tonight I did the ultimate comfort dinner in our house, beef stroganoff.  This is the meal that we have at the end of long days and long weeks.  This is the meal that is not experimented with or changed.  This is the meal that is quick, easy, and always delivers a smile.  I always have the appropriate ingredients for this so that I can make this whenever in a pinch.  I think that all home cooks either should have a meal like this, or already do.

It's a very simple recipe, one that I've tweaked for freshness, but really have not deviated from.  I start with sauteing some fresh onion and garlic.  Then I add extra lean ground beef and season with black pepper, seasoned salt, and basil.  A lot of beef stroganoff recipes call for something like Sirloin, or other cuts of meat.  I stick with ground beef because it's what we've always used, absorbs the spices well, and my love of steak makes it difficult for me to chop it up and add it recipes like this.  Once the beef is close to brown, I add some white wine.  Then, to finish it, I actually cheat a little.  I pull out the packet of McCormick's Beef Stroganoff seasoning.  I know, it's almost sacrilegious for someone with aspiring cooking skills to rely on the premixed seasoning packet, but it adds the perfect flavor, and like I said, I don't deviate very much.  Then I add in a little sour cream and serve it directly over some steamed calrose rice with green beans.

This simple recipe has become such the comfort meal that any deviation is usually met with some displeasure.  One time I tried ground turkey, another fat free sour cream.  I've tried adjusting the spice blend for the meat.  Nothing works.  The thing is, it's not necessarily that the taste of this is the most amazing taste ever.  In fact, it's probably not the most delicious thing that I've made, and I'm sure with enough experimenting I could enhance it in someway.  But, that's not the point.  The point is that this meal is pure comfort as it is.  And sometimes with food, that is ultimately what is most important.