At Home with Kristi

A few days ago Matthew asked me what we were having for dinner. “Chicken Picatta” I said.

“What’s that?”

“Chicken in white wine and lemon sauce”

Matthew gives me a skeptical look.

“It will be good, you’ll like it.”

“It doesn’t  sound very good” he said, looking kind of sad.

“Trust me, you’ll like it”

“Ok” he said, still looking sad.

So I…..

Mixed 1/3 of a cup of flour, 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp pepper and  1/2 tsp garlic powder in a bowl

Pounded some chicken breasts out flat

Dredged the chicken in the flour mixture

Melted 1tbsp of butter and 1 tbsp of olive oil in a pan

Put the chicken in the pan

Waited a few minutes and flipped it over

Waited until it was nice and golden and removed it to a plate

and proceeded to make the sauce

You are supposed to use “rinsed capers”.  For those of you who have never worked with capers, they are tiny, not easy to rinse. Here is how I did it.

I then added the capers, about 3 tbsp worth, to the juice of one lemon, 1/2 cup of white wine and 1 1/2 cups of chicken broth

Now, I am going to deviate for a moment and tell you what I SHOULD have done, not what I DID.

Remember the pan you cooked your chicken in?  Look at all the yummy butter and chicken bits left in it.

Mmmmm….

Okay, stop drooling and take about a tablespoon (maybe two depending on how much oil/butter is left in the pan) and make a roux.  I can’ t show you this, because I didnt do it, and my sauce did not get thick so I had to add the flour in after and do many tiring things to get the lumps out.  So do as I say, not as I do.  Once you have the flour incorporated into the oil in a roux, add the liquids (and capers).

And you’ll get a sauce that looks much nicer than this one

Now I returned the chicken to the pan for a few minutes to heat back up and get all saucy!

Finally I plated it up with a bit of pasta with the sauce over it, some crusty bread that I toasted a bit and a Caesar salad.

Then we sat down to eat.

A few minutes later Matthew looked over at me and says ‘This is good.”

“I told you so” may have slipped out.  I am only human after all.

Get the pdf of this recipe

Back in the days when we first moved to St. Louis (late 90’s) we used to eat at Houlihan’s a lot.  They had this dish that Matthew got, he thinks it was called Tuscan Lemon Chicken.  It was a breaded chicken breast and a lemony alfredo sauce.  They don’t have that particular dish anymore so he requested that I try to replicate it.  I had never made alfredo sauce before and I did learn a few things.

First, I made the chicken from this recipe.   Then I started two sauces, the lemon garlic sauce from the same recipe as the chicken and the alfredo sauce.

The alfredo sauce ingredients

• 1 pint half & half
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 1/2 cups Parmesan cheese

The procedure

1. Heat half and half and butter over medium-low heat and whisk to combine once the butter has melted
2. raise the heat to medium-high and whisk in the cheese

That is basically how you make alfredo sauce, now I make it into lemon garlic alfredo

1. Transfer the alfredo sauce to a tall sided container
2. Use and immersion blender to make it nice and smooth
3. Incorporate the lemon garlic sauce into the alfredo sauce in about for increments, blending well between each one

Have I mentioned that I now refer to my immersion blender as my “sauce saver”?

Return the now finished sauce to the pan.

Ladle the sauce over cooked noodles (I used linguine)

Throw the chicken on top

What I learned

1. use heavy cream instead of half and half so the heat can go higher to melt the cheese faster and make a smoother sauce

2. put the noodles in the sauce so you don’t end up with “clump o’noodles”

3.  Add a little lemon zest to the chicken breading

Ugh, I’m a messy cook!

Matthew said it tasted almost exactly like the old Houlihan’s dish, so I guess Mission Accomplished!

I saw Chicken Spedini on a restaurant menu recently and have been wanting it since. Tonight I decided to try making it for the first time.

First, pound out some chicken breast fillets flat.

Breadcrumb Mix

• 1/2 cup panko bread crumbs
• 2 tbsp grated parmesean/romano cheese
• italian seasoning
• 2 tbsp margarine
• 1 tsp garlic powder

Spread the crumb mixture over the flattened chicken breasts

Roll up the chicken around the breadcrumbs (jelly roll style)

Slice each roll into 3 or 4 pieces (depending on the size), and thread 3 or 4 slices on a skewer.  Then sprinkle with some of the remaining crumb mixture

Put the chicken in the oven at 375 for about 25-30 minutes.

Meanwhile put water for pasta on to boil and start the sauce

Sauce

• 2 tbsp margarine
• 2 tsp garlic
• 3/4 cup lemon juice
• salt
• pepper

Mix everything together in a small sauce pan and stir while the butter melts.   I then transfered it to a bowl and used the immersion blender to make it smooth and a bit more homogoneous.

Plate the chicken and pasta, drizzle sauce over both.

Get the pdf of this recipe