Sunday, February 7, 2016

Side Benefit

As part of our requirements for school, we have to complete a minimum of three "events." The career counselor suggested assisting in some of the recreational classes, particularly covering topics we're not covering in class, so we get a wider breadth of experience. Last Wednesday I assisted for a Regional French cooking class, covering the Savoy and Dauphine regions. The students made three different entrées, fondue, a cheese soufflé, two sides, three desserts, and a duck confit that will be used this week (I'm assisting this week as well). One of the entrées was trout Grenobloise. And it was amazing.

Since fish is piscis non grata in our house, sadly, I decided to make it with chicken breasts. First I clarified 12 ounces of butter and set that aside. Then I filleted the chicken so instead of three whole breasts I had six pieces of reasonable thickness. These were seasoned with salt and pepper and set aside. I set up the rest of the mise en place: the pulp of five lemons, chopped up, capers, toasted bread crumbs (they were supposed to be like really small croutons; I had toasted some of the French bread from a previous class to preserve it so I broke that up into little pieces), parsley for garnish. When I was ready, the chicken was dredged in flour and cooked in the clarified butter, about 8 minutes or so per side. They were set onto a warm serving plate and then the rest of the butter was used to cook up the lemon and capers. Right before serving I tossed in the bread crumbs and poured it over the chicken.
Had I known that it was too strong of a lemon flavor for the ten year old, I would have just made it with fish. But that's okay. The rest of us really enjoyed it.

(And, yes. I know. It's a citrus flavored food. But for some reason, this one is okay with me. Go figure.)

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