I woke up to this sun-filled morning and decided that, for dinner, I wanted pasta with the basil pesto I still have from last summer’s batch.
I am happy just with pasta, but my body didn’t need, with its still pandemic 20 (extra pounds), five or six ounces of pasta. I wondered if I still had Pam Anderson’s How to Cook Without a Book on how to make a thin chicken cutlet to go with that pasta.
I looked in my bookshelf and I hadn’t given it away to the Book Barn. Not only that, I still have the column in my computer files, from 2014, but I hadn’t made it since my move to a condo.
So, I foraged into my garage freezer and found boneless, skinless chicken breasts and found the pesto from my kitchen freezer. That evening, I made the chicken with the Marsala pan sauce. This way I only needed two ounces of pasta.
I took the tiny package of pesto and warmed the plastic in my hands. I drained the pasta, added the pesto, topped it with some fresh parmigiana, and placed it on a warmed plate with the chicken Marsala.
Show me a restaurant, who can do that as well as you (or I) can!
Sautéed, Boneless, Skinless Chicken Cutlets with Pan Sauce
Adapted from How to Cook Without a Book by Pam Anderson (Broadway Books, New York, 2000)
Yield: Serves 4
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon oil
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, each cut horizontally and opened (like a book)
Salt, ground black pepper and one-quarter cup flour poured into plastic bag
Pan sauce (see below)
- Heat butter and oil into an 11- to 12-inch skillet over low heat. While pan is heating, dredge breasts into flour mixture and shake out excess. (You will sauté them in batches single file, if necessary, so that they do not steam.)
- A couple of minutes before sautéing, increase heat to medium-high. When butter starts foaming and to smell ‘nutty,’ arrange the chicken breasts in the skillet. Cook, turning only once, until chicken breasts are rich golden brown, about three minutes per side.
- Remove chicken from skillet and place on warmed platter…
Pan Sauce Possibilities
How to Make a Pan Sauce
- Measure pan sauces ingredient in a measuring cup (liquid always total ½ cup.
- Pour liquid into hot skillet once chicken cutlets (or pork or veal or fish, for that matter), scraping off good browned bits.
- Reduce liquid to ¼ cup.
- Tilt skillet and whisk in butter or cream, and spoon over each portion and serve.
Red Wine-Dijon Pan Sauce
Liquid ¼ cup canned low-sodium chicken broth; ¼ cup full-bodied red wine
Flavoring—1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
Fat—1 tablespoon butter
Measure broth, wine and mustard in a measuring cup. Following instruction for making a pan sauce above
Marsala Wine Pan Sauce
Liquid—1/2 cup Marsala wine
Fat—1 tablespoon butter
Follow instruction for making a pan sauce above
Balsamic Vinegar Pan Sauce
Liquid—1/4 cup balsamic vinegar; one-quarter cup canned low-sodium chicken broth
Fat—1 tablespoon butter
Combine vinegar and broth with a measuring cup. Follow instructions for making a pan sauce.
About the author: Lee White has been writing about restaurants and cooking since 1976 and has been extensively published in the Worcester (Mass.) Magazine, The Day, Norwich Bulletin, and Hartford Courant. She currently writes Nibbles and a cooking column called A La Carte for LymeLine.com and the Shore Publishing and the Times newspapers, both of which are owned by The Day. She was a resident of Old Lyme for many years, but now lives in Groton, Conn.