Chicken, Zucchini and Prosciutto
Well, the meal came out fairly tasty and we did eat it. But so many things went wrong along the way!
For starters, this recipe calls for two skillets: one in which you sauté some chicken breasts and then transfer to the oven to bake the breasts, and a second in which you stir-fry a whole bunch of zucchini. I do have more than one skillet – one large and two small, the size I assume you’d use for a one-egg omelet. I’m not good with kitchen improvising, but was determined to do so.
The chicken part initially went fine. I actually took a knife and sliced the chicken so I could butterfly the breasts. I sautéed it, two minutes on each side. I put it into the oven. There were no injuries!
As I was cooking, something very fortuitous happened: Hubby came home with Serrano ham – a cured Spanish ham that isn’t too far from prosciutto (I like it better). I snagged a few slices from the package.
Heading downhill
It was time for me to use the second skillet to stir-fry the zucchini, garlic, Serrano and a few other ingredients. Here’s where things started to go bad: I needed garlic, and I am just getting into using fresh garlic instead of jarred garlic. I pulled off the heads I needed, but couldn’t find the peely-tool. The recipe called for “thinly sliced garlic.” How do you thinly slice something that small without thinly slicing your fingers? The garlic ended up pretty thickly sliced, and there weren’t a lot of pieces.
Then there was the matter of the skillet: Having only a small skillet yet, I had to do this part of the recipe in two batches. After sautéing the Serrano, I successfully chopped up a yellow squashe and zucchini, threw them into the little skillet with half the garlic, and stir-fried them.
Then I had to repeat the process with more zucchini and garlic. It went okay.
Ouch!
Having finished the vegetable portion, I pulled the skillet of chicken out of the oven and asked Hubby, who is very particular abut how done chicken needs to be, if the chicken was done. As he was trying to check on it, he grabbed the handle of the skillet and burned himself. I have old-school Calphalon hard-anodized cookware, from back before they insulated the handles, so those babies get HOT.
The kitchen shows its hatred
By this point, with my multiple sautéings and transferring of ingredients around, I had used a gillion bowls (technical term). But now it was time to bring this dish together in one place. I dumped the zucchini and the Serrano ham into the skillet with the chicken, and as I was plating it – plating it! – i burned my wrist by leaning it onto the skillet. I burned it badly. This further reinforced that the kitchen hates me.
But the food was good, we enjoyed it. I thought the chicken was a bit overcooked, but Hubby found it perfect.
Dirty dishes created:
- 1 large plate
- 1 small plate
- 2 cutting boards
- 1 shot glass used for measuring tablespoons
- 1 large bowl
- 2 skillets (1 large, 1 small)
- 1 spoontula
- 1 garlic peeling roll
- 2 forks
- 2 sharp knives
- 2 Caffeine Free Diet Coke cans to treat my burn and Hubby’s
