Chicken Paillard

Ross got me a cookbook called "The Kitchen Matrix" by Mark Bittman for Christmas. It's a neat concept that takes a single ingredient, for example Chicken, and shows you 1 basic recipe that can be altered in numerous different ways to give you a completely different meal. It's right up my ally. No more, "I have some leeks, but I don't know what to make" because you simply look up that ingredient in the cookbook and see what recipes use it.

I selected Chicken Paillard as the first recipe to try out. As far as I can tell that word just refers to the meat being pounded out so that the most surface area contacts the breading. Here's Mark's blog post all about Paillards and the recipe itself- Mark is a regular food contributor for the NY Times. I have a feeling I'll be cooking out of this book for awhile.

The recipe was good and not overly complicated. Pounding the meat makes for a faster cook time. I served the chicken with some fresh pasta (thanks While Foods) and a watercress salad. I didn't get great pictures from my iphone, so you'll have to try it to believe it.

Claire thought the chicken was better than chicken nuggets, but she wasn't sold on the pasta, so Dad ate that.