Cornmeal Chicken Cutlets Done My Way

             Last night I came home from a Yankee game and I wasn't sure I wanted to eat for dinner. I was conflicted with either going to the diner and spending money, or cooking something at home and saving a few bucks, with a sink of dirty dishes as the only price. After nearly two hours of contemplating, I finally went with staying home and doing something with the chicken cutlets I had purchased many days ago. I figured 12:40 am was the ideal time to cook a meal and eat it.

             Usually when I make chicken cutlets I like to bread them, but this time I wanted to add a new wrinkle into the mix to make them that more interesting. To add taste and make the crust more crispy, I decided to bring corn meal into the fold. Starting out with my chicken cutlets which can be purchased from any friendly neighborhood supermarket, I brought out flour, bread crumbs, three eggs, oregano, herbs de provence, salt, lemon juice, cooking oil, and the star of the show: corn meal. For a side dish I wanted to boil up some spaghetti. Had it been earlier in the evening I would've also done a sauce, but due to the lateness of the hour, I was going to stick with keeping the pasta plain. Once I started getting everything together in the kitchen, Leo heard the stirring around and came in to see what all the commotion was. It's usually quite annoying to try to cook with Leo around as he makes many attempts to try to get at the food. I was going to lock him in the living room, but when I noticed he was quietly perched upon the kitchen radiator, I figured I would let him stay for the time being.

             Many people make the mistake of dipping the cutlets into the egg yolk as the first step, that's actually step two. What needs to be done first is coating the raw cutlets with flour; just pour some flour onto the cutlets and massage the powder on all exposed surfaces. Then take the three eggs and break open the yokes into a bowl. Once I threw the egg shells into the garbage, Leo leaped off of the radiator and peeked into the garbage to see what treasure I just had disposed of. With the floured-cutlets and egg-dip bowl ready, the final preparation is the bread crumbs. Pour some bread crumbs onto a dish, and then add dashes of salt, oregano, herbs de provence, and of course the corn meal. You can use a utensil or even your hand to mix up the bread crumb-corn meal concoction It's best to organize each dish and bowl in order like an assembly line. Starting from the left; there's the cutlets, the eggs, the bread crumbs, and to the right an empty plate to house the breaded cutlets. Again, you can either use a utensil or even you hand for the breading process. Take a cutlet, dip it completely in the egg yolk, then place in onto top of the bread crumbs (flip it over to cover both sides), and once covered by the crumbs, place in the plate. When all the cutlets have been breaded, this is when you can take the lemon juice bottle and give the chicken slices a few squeezes of juice for extra flavoring.

             With the cutlets ready to go, I poured some cooking oil onto my trusty iron pan and let it heat for about three minutes. That's when I took a folk to carefully place all four pieces of cutlet onto the hot pan. The initial sizzle noise from the chicken hitting the pan let me know it was officially game time!! Leo came over for a closer look to see how this phase of the cooking was panning out. Each side requires about ten to twelve minutes to cook, so I didn't want to start the pasta until the first side was done. I kept taking little peeks underneath the cutlets, and once I saw the dark brown grill lines from the pan, I knew it was time to flip them over. Leo was still curious about those discarded egg shells, but too bad for him the garbage cover was down. When the cutlets where on their other side, I poured the spaghetti into the boiling water and let the both of them race towards the finishing line. Leo grabbed a spot at the kitchen table in anticipation that he was going to join me for this meal. In about ten to twelve minutes, same as Side A, the dark brown lines from the grill where in clear view and the cutlets were ready to consume. In about this same time the spaghetti was nice and soft and I was able place everything onto my plate. Just as I hoped, the added corn meal kept the cutlet crust firm and in its place. Far too often with chicken cutlets, once you start cutting them with your utensils, the layer of bread crumb slips right off like a sock. That's definitely not the case when the corn meal is there to lend support.

             Adding corn meal to cat food might be a whole other story..........

Garlic Steak Done My Way

             Last month I received a grill pan from Macy's as a present, and after some testing with chicken skewers, sausages, and even the old favorite liver, I was ready to put this thing on the front line to battle a couple of steaks. I didn't want to make this just some ordinary steak, I wanted to give it an unusual flavor that's not far out of the realm, but at the same time advertised seldom. After reviewing a number of candidates in my head, garlic struck me as the way to go. Other than garlic fries, rarely is garlic ever mentioned in anything, yet its a key ingredient to an infinite amount of dishes, so garlic steak it was.

              Looking for something that would cook rather quickly, I went with a pair of thin shoulder steaks which came out to a little over four dollars only. Giving olive oil the night off, I went with Mazola Corn Oil to grease up the pan before starting. After gently swaying the pan left and right, its easy to coat the pan's surface with the oil, then pour any excess amount into the sink. Other parts to the machine include an onion, a garlic clove, black pepper, herbs, salt, and garlic powder. Placing the steaks onto a dish, I seasoned the meat on both sides with salt, black pepper, herbs, and most importantly, several dashes of garlic powder. While those flavors seep into the cold meat, I then take the time to slice up an onion and a few bulbs of garlic  into little diced pieces. With a small portion of the cut up onion and garlic (remember to only take a small portion of it!), place some of it in the grill and start the fire. This will help add flavors to the pan, plus after getting hot, the onion and garlic will sweat water to assist the oil to not letting the meat stick to the pan's surface. The benefit of the thinly cut meat is that it will cook fast and after three minutes the bottom half will start turning brown. Once that happens, turn the steaks over, and then pour the remaining pieces of onion and garlic onto it. Now the steaks will have garlic and onion pieces under and over it, soaking in their juices while it cooks on the pan.

             Keeping an eye on the meat so it doesn't burn, it will require a few more flips over, but it no more than in twelve minutes it should be ready to eat. Not wanting to just have meat by itself, while the steak was about halfway done, I heated up a pot of water and dumped in a few handfuls of dry linguini pasta. Typically I would use fresh pasta, especially with an important event such as this, but for some reason Fairway didn't have any in the usual spot I find it in, so I had no choice but to go with the dry version. One of the best aspects of the grill pan is that it removes a large dose of the grease from the steaks and automatically shuffles it off to the side so you can appreciate what's not going inside your stomach. Once everything was cooked and ready, I placed it on a large plate and even gave myself a squirt of ketchup (this cook wouldn't be insulted). It wouldn't take a psychic to predict that with the garlic powder and the fresh garlic dices used, that garlic jumps out as the predominate flavor, so far the mission was accomplished in that regard, but was it too much? That's where the black pepper and onion play pivotal roles in jumping in with enough of their respective flavors to balance out the heavyweight garlic. That with a dip of ketchup, and the grill pan had conquered it first major opponent in the steak world.

               Nothing else inside of Macy's would've fought so gallantly......