One Of These Things Is Not Like The Other

Okay, I PROMISE I'll get better at posting...the holiday threw me off my cooking schedule, as did staying at my parents' place.  There's no place like your own kitchen.  Something about that space you know like the back of your hand; you easily fly through the cabinets, drawers, refrigerator, with the ease of knowing that you put an item in a spot just so, and when you open the door, it will still be right there.  None of that "Where'd you hide the spoon now!?" or "What, we're keeping the mustard shoved in the back so it's NOT VISIBLE are we?"

To celebrate the first cooking night back in my place, which is currently in mild shambles since I'm having a hole in my ceiling repaired, I rounded up a new cookbook that I haven't used yet.  The Marshall Field's Cookbook was my first grab and after delighting in the fact that Marcus Samuelsson was on the back cover with some other "important" chefs as well, I got down to picking out a recipe.  I totally rooted for him on Top Chef Masters. Plus I love his accent.  I started pretty much at the beginning of the book and flipped around until I stumbled upon page 62 and their Asiago-Crusted Chicken with Mustard-Glazed Carrots.  To be honest, the reason this caught my eye was because I love Panera's Asiago cheese bagels.  Love them.  As in I could eat about 5 in one sitting.  I was over the moon when we'd get bagels for the monthly communication meeting in the MCO--I'd race up once they arrived and make sure I was in line to get me some of that.  Plain cream cheese--nothing too fancy.

Let me start by saying that the end result of dinner looked like a distant, "we don't talk about that side of the family" cousin to the picture in the book but I thought it was pretty tasty, which should be all that matters; the house was only slightly filled with a film of cooking smoke (but the windows were open!) at the end.

As the Von Trapp family would say, "Let's start at the very beginning.  A very good place to start."  I made the carrots first, heating them in a mixture of water, butter, olive oil, brown sugar, and mustard.  This is good for about a pound of baby carrots and it was super easy--just let it simmer for about 8-12 minutes.  The instructions said that the water would evaporate and the carrots would be coated in a glaze.  I can tell you this much, that didn't really happen...at all.  I had those suckers simmering for like 25 minutes and I swear all the liquid I started with was still around at the end.  

Next, I made the chicken.  To do so, I put the asiago cheese and bread crumbs into a bowl and mixed it together.  Technically it called for them to be put into a food processor and "pulsed to combine".  This, I thought, was semi-ridiculous.  You're telling me that a spoon can't do the same work?  I stirred in the parsley after that and set it aside. (Upon reflection, this might be part 1 of how the DNA got messed up from the glamor shot food picture).

In another bowl, I whisked, yes, whisked the egg and water together.  Lastly, I put a 1/2 cup of flour onto a plate and was ready to bread the chicken.

Step one: "liberally season the chicken breasts on both sides with salt and pepper."  Check.

Step two: "dredge in the flour and shake off any excess.  Dip in the egg wash..."  They used the word "dredge"!!!  In a cookbook!!!

Step three: "coat on all sides with the Asiago breadcrumbs".  Yeah, this doesn't look quite right.

At this moment, I had the chicken going, the carrots simmering, and the sauce boiling.  To make the Pommery Mustard Sauce, all I did was bring 1.5 cups of heavy cream with 1/4 cup whole grain mustard (yes, there is such a thing--at least I think I bought the right thing), salt and pepper to a boil and the let simmer for about 15 minutes.  

Apparently, I also got a seal of approval.  I dodged the thumbs up in another picture but my "quick as a cat" reflexes were no match for this one.

At this point, my dinner guest and I had a friendly (read:competitive) disagreement on how we felt Marshall Field's Cookbook should have had us bread the chicken since the first of the three pieces (the practice round) didn't turn out too well--there's no picture of that disappointment.  One of us opted for the "by the book, no alterations" way, and the other opted for "my way is better even though I don't have much cooking experience."  The second way involved first putting the chicken in the egg/water mixture, THEN putting flour on it, and ONLY THEN, do you add the cheese to the top after it's cooked for a while so it melts in.

Additionally, option number two called for the microwave since by now, it was around 7:30 and both of us were starving.  Side bar, we also had differing opinions on how the sauce should cover the chicken.

I'll let you be the judge of which meal presentation you'd rather eat:  

Here's "by the book, no alterations":

And here's "my way is better even though I don't have much cooking experience":

I'll leave you with a synopsis of this evening's dinner.  Pretty good, would have gone with thinner pieces of chicken if I were to do it all over again, but gosh darn it, that Pommery Mustard Sauce was muy bien. I saved the rest in order to put it on, well, everything.