Chicken Milanese with Arugula Salad or Musicians and The Art of Shameless Self-Promotion.

     Welcome back and thank you for checking out my blog. After last week's post I received a request from Jenny (the names have been changed to protect the guilty) that I should include nutritional information and serving sizes. Although these recipes are considered "diet" I don't always have the nutritional values but I will post them when I can. Also, since these are diet recipes the serving sizes may not be what you are used to and if you are not dieting please don't feel that you have to adhere to them. Lastly, if the recipe says that it serves 4 that means that it makes 4 "diet" servings and if you would like more it would be a good idea to double the recipe.

     As I discussed in last week's post one of the inspirations for starting this experiment was the movie "Julie & Julia" which gave me the initial idea to post pictures of food on Facebook. The motivation to do this came to me through Facebook itself. Let me explain. In my professional life I work with musicians, some are well-known and have fame and success, some are not well-known and they struggle everyday to find work and draw an audience. The well-known musicians have public relations teams and promoters to get the word out for them, the unknown have to get the word out any way they can. I call this "the art of shameless self-promotion". It's through this self promotion that most musicians turn to social media to reach as many people as possible as cheaply as possible. Most musicians will post one or two announcements a few weeks before a show but a small group of musicians in their tenuous musician way will post ten to twenty announcements every day which results in my Facebook news feed being overloaded with fifty posts each day by three bands that I probably won't go see. With all of that white noise to sift through I started to wonder what harm it would be for me to post an occasional picture of the new recipes I was making. With that in mind I decided to go a head and post some pictures and see what happens. After posting a few pictures I started to receive a few positive comments and requests for the recipes and I started to think about developing the next step in this project. To make a long story short I cleaned out my Facebook, I cleaned out my kitchen and pantry, and I started this blog. If you've stayed with me so far I hope that you find this entertaining and maybe even insightful. Let's move on to today's dinner.

                    Chicken Milanese with Arugula Salad. 

     Today I am discussing Chicken Milanese with Arugula Salad, this is actually two recipes that compliment each other well and I will address them separately. Chicken Milanese is a tenderized chicken breast with what I can best describe as a breading, the difference is that instead of bread crumbs the breading is made from Romano Cheese and Parsley. I opted to buy romano cheese that has already been grated. The things that I noticed while making this recipe are - the breading process can be messy and it's important to be attentive while cooking so you don't burn the breading. The steps for making the chicken are very easy and you should have no difficulty. The Arugula Salad requires two special ingredients, Arugula and Fennel Bulbs. Arugula is a leafy type of lettuce native to the Mediterranean region. The problem I had was that although I went to an upscale store that has an extensive fruit and vegetable section, I couldn't find any Arugula.
After looking for about twenty minutes and forcing myself to overcome my male nature I asked an employee where I could find it. He pointed out that it is stocked in the ready-to-eat, bagged salad section.

With that behind me I was off to the much easier to find Fennel Bulbs. In our last recipe I wrote about Fennel Seeds, Fennel Bulbs are the other end of the plant.

Fennel Bulbs

 Fennel is also native to the Mediterranean region, the bulb is similar to a large onion with thick layers but with a sweet, mild licorice flavor. With all of my ingredients purchased I was ready to go home and cook.
So let's go over the recipes.

                                    Chicken Milanese

Prep Time   20 min.     Cook Time   14 min.     Serves   4

Ingredients

1 pound uncooked boneless skinless chicken breast(s), four 4 oz. pieces

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp black pepper

2 Tbs. all-purpose flour

1 large egg

3 large egg whites

1/4 cup parsley, fresh, minced

1/2 oz. romano cheese, grated (about 1/4 cup)

1/3 cup dried plain bread crumbs

4 sprays cooking spray, divided

1 Tbs. butter, divided

2 Tbs. fresh lemon juice

Instructions

Place chicken between two sheets of wax paper; pound until 1/3 inch thick. Rub salt and pepper into both sides of chicken. 

Place flour in a shallow bowl. Place bread crumbs in a second shallow bowl. In a third shallow bowl, whisk together egg, egg whites, parsley and cheese.

Dip a piece of chicken into flour, turn to coat and shake off excess. Next, dip chicken into egg mixture; turn to coat. Lastly, dip chicken into bread crumbs, shaking off any excess ingredients. Set aside and repeat with remaining chicken.

Coat a large skillet with cooking spray; place over medium-high heat. Melt half of butter in skillet; add two pieces of chicken. Cook chicken until coating is golden, flipping once, about 7 minutes; remove to a paper towel and cover loosely to keep warm. Off heat, recoat skillet with cooking spray; place over medium-high heat. Melt remaining butter in skillet; cook remaining pieces of chicken.

Sprinkle chicken with lemon juice and serve topped with salad.

                                                           Arugula Salad

Prep Time   10 min.     Cook Time   0 min.     Serves   4

Ingredients

1 1/2 Tbs. fresh lemon juice

1 Tbs. olive oil

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp black pepper

2 bunches arugula

1/2 medium uncooked fennel bulb(s), very thinly Sliced (about 1 cup)

1 cup uncooked red onion, thinly sliced

1 cup grape tomatoes, quartered

Instructions

In a small bowl, whisk together first four ingredients; set aside

In a large bowl, combine arugula, fennel, onion, and tomatoes.

Toss salad with dressing

These recipes yield 1 piece of chicken and 2 cups of loosely packed salad per serving.


     These are wonderful recipes that I had never tried before and I am happy with the way they came out.
I hope you enjoy these recipes and if you make them please leave a comment and let me know how they worked out for you.

     Next week - Chicken Parmesan or Life in a World without Restaurants.