YOU ALL KNOW JULIE! She used to be one of MLK's regulars. She writes the fabulous White House Chef Mysteries and the Manor House Mysteries. You can find out more at her website: Julie Hyzy.
Welcome, Julie!
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It is so great to be back here in the kitchen! I loved being
part of this amazing blog and interacting daily with my wonderful friends here.
I miss you all so much, but I do stop by often and I love all the recent
changes and additions. Such a fabulous lineup! Thanks to Avery for inviting me
and thank you to you all for allowing me to be a guest!
I’m here today to talk about my newest book, and … Chicken
Giardiniera.
What says Christmas better than Chicken Giardiniera? Okay,
lots of things but the nice red and green (and, cough…orange) vegetables
decorating otherwise ordinary chicken breasts are what make this dish special.
It’s super easy but good enough for company. Even better, it made a giardiniera
lover out of me. Our favorite local restaurant offers a dish similar to this
one. My husband orders it almost every time we go there, and when he made me
sample a bite, I understood why. I also understood that I needed to learn how
to make this dish at home!
As I type this post, I’m putting the finishing touches on
the sixth White House Chef mystery, and I’m eagerly awaiting the release of
number five, Affairs of Steak, which
comes out in about two weeks, January 3rd. I can’t tell you how excited I am
about this particular story. In Affairs,
Ollie is stuck working with her nemesis, Peter Everett Sargeant. If you’ve read
any of the White House Chef novels, you’ll understand what a trial Ollie is in
for. There’s fun, there’s romance (NOT with Sargeant! Gak!), and I hope a
little heart tugging.
Oh, and there are murders, too (natch). I hope you’ll
consider picking it up.
 |
| Found in the pickles section! |
Avery (who asked me to be a guest) knows that I had a little problem with pictures for
this recipe. I’d taken photos about a month ago because I wanted to share this recipe
with you, but the photos must have been deleted from the camera – a fact I
wasn’t aware of until I sat down to pull it all together. Because I’m facing a
deadline and my husband always provides dinner during the final week before a
book is due (he doesn’t cook, he brings in), I’m not able to recreate it for
picture-sake again. My apologies.
No worries, though. This one is easy. And if you happen to
own The America’s Test Kitchen Family
Cookbook, you’re halfway there. I used their recipe for pan-seared chicken,
but came up with my own idea for a personal sauce. If you don’t particularly
care for giardiniera, try one of the sauces they feature on p 322 – 323 (third
edition).
Chicken Giardiniera
½ cup flour
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, trimmed and pounded to
uniform thickness (medium-thin)
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
salt
pepper
1 jar prepared giardiniera
3 cloves garlic, sliced thin
1 onion, chopped
Preheat oven to 200 F (warm)
After chicken is pounded to a relatively medium-thin
thickness, pat dry with paper towels, season with salt and pepper.
Place the ½ cup flour in a shallow dish then dredge chicken
breasts (one at a time) through, shaking off the excess.
Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat until the
oil is just smoking. Add chicken and cook until golden brown on both sides,
about 10 minutes each. Be sure to keep the chicken breasts separate in the
skillet so that pieces don’t overlap as you cook. And keep in mind that you’re
cooking the breasts all the way through, not just a partial cook. The first
time I did this I made the mistake of pulling them off the heat too early.
Transfer the chicken to an oven-safe plate and place in warm
oven. Do NOT clean skillet.
Add a scant bit of oil to the skillet, heat to medium-high
again. Add chopped onions and sliced garlic. Sauté until soft, and until onions
become translucent. Add about half a jar of giardiniera (we like to add more)
and continue to sauté, and stir, scraping up the browned bits of chicken stuck
in the bottom of the pan as you do so. When the sauce gets hot, pull the
warming chicken from the oven. Juices have probably accumulated on the plate.
Pour the juice into the skillet and continue over
medium-high heat until just short of bubbling.
Place chicken on platter. Spoon mixture over chicken and
serve.
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Julie Hyzy will be making many appearances in January to promote AFFAIRS OF STEAK. Check out her blog here for the full schedule.
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Thanks, Julie, for a delicious recipe ~Avery
Note: for those of you who can't find Giardineria in your grocery store (and I couldn't), here's a link to a recipe I found online, and it looks fabulous and not too hard to make: from THE PARSLEY THEIF BLOG You can click on that blog for a printable recipe.
Note: for those of you who can't find Giardineria in your grocery store (and I couldn't), here's a link to a recipe I found online, and it looks fabulous and not too hard to make: from THE PARSLEY THEIF BLOG You can click on that blog for a printable recipe.
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You can
learn more about me, Avery, by clicking this link.
Chat with
me on Facebook and Twitter.
And if you haven't done so, sign up for my mailing list
so you can learn about upcoming events, releases, and contests!
And watch
for CLOBBERED BY CAMEMBERT, coming
out February 2012.
