Italian Night in an American’s Household

So, Mike has tasted the finer things of Italy, the good proscuitto and he has rated and drank many fine Italian wines and even toured the countryside finding delicious things to eat or drink.  For now, however, I am home bound.  However I do sometimes get caught up in the good, simple foods from Italy, and last night I made two of them: Chicken cutlets and Risotto.  Below are my basic recipes for simple Italian goodness (with my own twists).

Italy is known for garlic, so don’t skimp on this delicious spice!  I make my chicken cutlets by thawing them, brining them in a salt solution for a few hours, cutting them into thin peices of chicken.  I heat oil (normally peanut, but I had sesame, which actually isnt too bad of an oil to cook with.  Also I bought a giant container at H-mart) in a sauce pan that is deep enough so when I add the chicken, it is totally submerged.  Tonight, since I was making risotto, which requires chicken broth, I took from my freezer a container of homemade chicken broth I made a few months ago.  It had a very nice, almost hockey puck of fat on top, liquid on bottom.  I used the fat in the frying oil and put some more of it with the rice, which I’ll cover in a bit.  So I basically used a chicken fat/sesame oil mixture to fry.  Heat the oil to 350 degrees and make sure the temp stays here… it’s hard to regulate on an electric stove, so, do you’re best.

My breading for the chicken is a bit different.  Normally  people use flour mixed with spices, which I do, however I  add some Masa to the mix.  Masa is what I use to make  tamales, it’s a finely ground up corn meal basically, and adds  some nice texture to the breading (especially important since  i’m using flour and not real breading or store bought  breading as a… breading.  man that’s a mouthful!).  I also  eyeball the amounts… don’t add a ton of flour and masa,  make a 1/3 mixture of masa to 2/3 of flour.  Then I like to  add garlic powder, basil and actually, cayenne powder….  gives a nice little kick as you bite into it.  Add these to a point where you can actually see them in the breading and they’re not diluted in the starch base to the point of no return.

Bread the chicken strips and place gently into the oil at the proper temp.  Keep an eye on them, as you’ll want to turn them over to brown a bit since the side facing the bottom of the pan will always be a bit hotter than the surround medium, though oil does a great job at dispersing that heat energy.  When they are a nice golden brown, remove them from the oil with a pair of tongs and place on a cooling rack with paper towel underneath.  This way the oil drips off and doesn’t soak back into the chicken!

Meanwhile, to make the risotto, get another good sauce pan and ideally you’ll have some good Italian rice, like arborio… if not, hopefully you have short grain or even medium grain rice will work in a pinch.  Take some olive oil and finely chop one onion and a few cloves of garlic.  Heat the oil and add the garlic and onions, making sure they don’t burn but cook for about 5 minutes until soft, starting to brown.  Add the rice, about 1-2 cups, depending on the size of your pan and cook with the garlic and co. for a few minutes, about 3 maybe.  Add a little bit of dry white wine, 1/2 cup and stir for a few minutes.  I forget which brand I used, but it was in our fridge and… honestly.. I needed to get rid of it somehow!  Begin adding cup after cup of chicken broth, slowly and mixing until the liquid if absorbed each time, until you’ve added about 5 cups of broth. At this time, I added some extra veggies from my freezer, a little bit of cauliflower and some chopped spinach and mixed with the rest of the rice.  After a few minutes of mixing, I added some herbs, some dried parsley I had and some basil. Cook for a few minutes, then serve.  You can add salt and pepper as you see fit, and if I had a harder cheese, Parmesan or Romano, I would have loved to have added it to the rice, but I had none in my fridge.

And there is dinner!  Served with a delicious La Rossa, a Birra moretti dark beer (has a nice sweetness to it, but not sickly sweet.  It went well with the chicken and rice!) and some espresso for after dinner (you can see my machine in the background), it was great!  My younger sister was in Italy for a few days a little while ago and brought me back 1kg of espresso beans which I forget the name of right now!  … so basically, if anyone wants espresso, please stop on by!