Meme: Recipe "Chicken Cutlets in Herb Butter Sauce"

[apple_pathways]

15 days meme

Day 01: Introduce yourself. List your likes and dislikes.
Day 02: Make a bulleted list of everything that happened in your day.
Day 03: Smile! We want to see your teeth today. Post a self-portrait.
Day 04: Share your favorite quote/song lyric.
Day 05: Share your favorite recipe.
I like simple food. It's hard for me to think of recipes to share, because I tend not to use recipes: I just cook things. And I never really cook anything the same way twice. (Which is maddening when I'm trying to re-create a success.) Also, I've already shared a lot of my favorite recipes! (Click on the 'recipe' tag and look for my recipe for Cuban black beans--that might be my absolute favorite thing that I cook. Simple, but yummy! And great in a taco with braised chard!)

BUT: this is something else I love to cook, that's especially tasty in the summertime.

(Note: I don't measure things. Sorry! But there's not much to this recipe, so it shouldn't be necessary.)

Chicken Cutlets in Herb Butter Sauce

Ingredients

• chicken breasts: boned and skinned
  
• flour: enough for dredging
  
• salt and pepper
  
• oil for frying
  
• butter: a couple tablespoons. unsalted is best, so you can add your own salt
  
• white wine: dryish. A chardonnay or a sauvignon blanc is good, or a drier pinot grigio. But pick something you like to drink, so you can finish the bottle with the meal!
  
• (If, for some reason, you don't want to use wine you could use chicken stock/broth instead. But I would add a good squeeze of lemon juice to add some tartness and acidity.)
  
• fresh herbs of your choice: I like chives and parsley, or mint and parsley, but almost any combo of fresh green herbs would work! (I'd avoid rosemary, though: just a bit too strong.)

Instructions

• Clean and trim the chicken, then slice the breasts nice and thin into cutlets: perhaps half an inch thick? Season each side of the cutlets with salt and pepper, and then coat them in the flour.
  
• Heat the oil in a large skillet. When it's hot, add the chicken in a single layer and cook until it's brown on both sides: roughly 4 minutes per side. Depending on how much chicken you're cooking, you may have to do it in batches. When the chicken is browned, remove it from the pan and set aside.
  
• Turn down the heat, and de-glaze the pan with the wine. (CAREFUL! It may splatter. If you're using a cast iron or other thick skillet, I'd even recommend taking it off the heat for a minute before you add the wine.) Depending on how much chicken you're cooking or how much sauce you want, use 1/2 to 1 full cup of wine. Scrape all the browned bits off the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon, and let the wine simmer for about a minute while the alcohol cooks off.
  
• Add the butter and stir until melted, then add the herbs. Return the chicken to the skillet and simmer for another minute or two to let the sauce reduce, turning the chicken to coat in the sauce. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

I always make this meal with couscous flavored with shallots and sauteed spinach. I don't have to: but it's a damn good combination!
Day 06: List 5 countries you'd like to visit.
Day 07: Provide pictures of 5 celebrity crushes.
Day 08: Create a bucket list, whether or not your aspirations are rational.
Day 09: Describe your food consumption today.
Day 10: Share some of your current favorite tunes.
Day 11: List some of your favorite tumblrs.
Day 12: Set a goal.
Day 13: Provide the HEX code(s) of your favorite color(s).
Day 14: Post a Youtube video that makes you laugh/inspires you.
Day 15: Make a voicepost in another language besides your native one.

(Sorry for the million posts a day! I promise I'll relax soon. I PROMISE! Gotta get through this meme first. :P)

Comments

[evilhippo.livejournal.com]

Noooo, why do you have to make me hungry right before bedtime? (This reminds me, yet again, that I need to grab some more cooking wine. I keep forgetting.)

[apple-pathways.livejournal.com]

Bah, sorry! I tend to eat rather late ('cause of work) so I just finished dinner a couple hours ago.

Yep, gotta have wine to cook with! I was chatting with someone on fail_fandomanon about what to do with my tarragon (I've never cooked with it on its own) and she suggested stuffing it in a bottle of wine for a day or two then using it to cook chicken or fish. I think I'm going to try that with this recipe. (It's funny that other people go to that website to bitch about fandom, and I ended up trading recipes and bitching about cucumber beetles!)

[evilhippo.livejournal.com]

I always eat early when I can, because I tend to be ravenous when I get back from work. I'm pretty sure that has something to do with my commute home, though.

That sounds delicious... I bet it'd work with other herbs, too. Mmmm, herb-wine. I'm going to have to do that... though my herbs aren't big enough yet for me to take more than a couple of sprigs for throwing into pasta. The internet has been full of wonderful and novel cooking ideas lately (did you know that mason jars can fit on most blenders to make a sort of food processor attachment? It seems so obvious now, but I hadn't a clue until someone linked this recently.)

[apple-pathways.livejournal.com]

I don't get home from work until around 7:45, 8:00, hence the late suppertime.

Consider my mind blown: that looks awesome. I have mason jars aplenty, but alas: no blender! (And my food processer is such that it requires a plastic butter knife to turn it on, because the tab on the side of the bowl that locks into the base broke off. Woe is my state of kitchen appliances! Woe!)