Well, it's been a while. Months even. I've been all over the place, visiting friends and family, volunteering, and going on vacation. But now that I'm settling back into cozy Chapel Hill to start studying for my Master's comprehensives, it appears Pensive Ramblings will be returning once again.
Last week I was vacationing at the beach with some family, and like usual we divided up the culinary responsibilities. I got to cook one night, and made the above chicken dish. It's pretty similar to previous stuffed chickens I've made, this one with feta cheese, tomatoes, and basil in the middle. But the last couple times I've been dissatisfied with the quality of the breading and was looking to improve on it. One difference was that I breaded this chicken before stuffing it. This allows the chicken to be breaded on both sides, a significant advantage, but it also means that I lose some of the breading just by the handling of the chicken during the stuffing and rolling.
Something else I wanted to improve on was the volume of the breading. I really just wanted more of it on the chicken. Part of my dipping mixture was melted butter, so I took some of the butter and drizzled it right into the dredging mixture of bread crumbs and parmesan cheese. This causes the crumbs to stick to each other and consequently stick to the chicken in bigger clumps. It worked really well and I'm planning on doing even more next time, using some oil instead of melted butter.
Overall I was happy with how the chicken turned out, and it received some rather nice compliments. I still want to improve the breading though, so in the next couple of weeks I'll be doing some more, probably frying this time around. Who could complain about that?
Last week I was vacationing at the beach with some family, and like usual we divided up the culinary responsibilities. I got to cook one night, and made the above chicken dish. It's pretty similar to previous stuffed chickens I've made, this one with feta cheese, tomatoes, and basil in the middle. But the last couple times I've been dissatisfied with the quality of the breading and was looking to improve on it. One difference was that I breaded this chicken before stuffing it. This allows the chicken to be breaded on both sides, a significant advantage, but it also means that I lose some of the breading just by the handling of the chicken during the stuffing and rolling.
Something else I wanted to improve on was the volume of the breading. I really just wanted more of it on the chicken. Part of my dipping mixture was melted butter, so I took some of the butter and drizzled it right into the dredging mixture of bread crumbs and parmesan cheese. This causes the crumbs to stick to each other and consequently stick to the chicken in bigger clumps. It worked really well and I'm planning on doing even more next time, using some oil instead of melted butter.
Overall I was happy with how the chicken turned out, and it received some rather nice compliments. I still want to improve the breading though, so in the next couple of weeks I'll be doing some more, probably frying this time around. Who could complain about that?
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