Most of my time on social media these days have switched (somewhat) from posting bullshit nonsense to looking up tasty cooking videos and saving them to my profile. True while I have about 100 videos saved, I have only actually made about 4-5 of them. Which brings me to this past weekends dinner.
The recipe originated from a Tasty/Buzz-feed video I stumbled upon on Facebook. Essentially it consisted of a chicken breast cut in such a way that you could stuff it with Sun-dried tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil. I admit the dish wasn't bad as it was presented in the video and simple enough for anyone to make.
I can recall the first time I tried this stuffed chicken recipe I absolutely fell in love the with the sun-dried tomato. The robust explosion of flavor blew my mind. One of those meals that makes my jaw tingle a little when I think about it. Once the daydream of running off and marrying an anthropomorphized Sun Dried tomato named Tammy Tomate, I soon began to come up with a way of improving the dish.
My biggest issue was the chicken to tomato ratio. There were some parts that were bursting with tomato and very little chicken and others that were just straight up chicken. I have evolved from the Pocket stuffed chicken to a more of a roll-up design, first, I would butterfly the chicken breast and pound it flat as best I could. Then layer the chicken with sun-dried tomato paste, cheese and fresh basil topped with chunks of sun-dried tomato bits. Once all the fixings were prepared I rolled it up best I could try to keep it all in place. Season to taste and topped with sun-dried dressing, more shredded cheese and a few whole sun-dried tomatoes to be burned in the oven.
FYI: BURNT SUN-DRIED TOMATOES ARE DELICIOUS!
To accompany the chicken I decided to mash up the leftover potato I had from a previous family dinner. 5 lb of Yukon gold potatoes cubed and boiling on the stove until soft for mashing were well underway. In addition to the potatoes, I decided on roasted carrots. Many moons ago while experimenting with season sticks (sticks of seasonings that you insert into your meat for inner seasoning) I cut up some carrots and threw them on the pan with the various chicken breast. To this day I have no idea how but those carrots came out next to divine. I have tried again and again to replicate but have not yet succeeded...the quest continues.
It was around the time I was mashing the potato when my Dinner guest arrived, the requested bottle of wine in hand. This evenings meal would be for an old friend and classmate of mine, Kylie. It had been a few years since I last saw her, which is why I chose my Sure Thing Chicken; a kind of "I'm sorry for being a crappy friend" meal. Staying socially connected has never been one of my strengths I am more of a socially awkward kind of guy. Upon her arrival I felt a bit like a chicken with his head cut off, running around half mad in the kitchen trying to remember what I had just forgotten that I was going to tell myself to do. Once the cooking wrapped up we began our evening, it was decided we would watch Kingsman: The Golden Circle. Overall the evening was rather enjoyable. There were a few hiccups, namely her chicken being slightly undercooked..oops. but overall it was a good time. We ate, drank wine, watched a kick-ass movie and reminisced about our younger years. I look forward to having her over for future dishes.
If you can take anything away from this, I hope it is the desire to find a recipe you can master. Everyone should have a go do dish to impress.
No comments:
Post a Comment