Cooking for the Challenged
17 June, 2012 § 5 Comments
I challenged myself last week at the grocery store. I bought some chicken breasts. They come raw. Gross.
They waited and waited until tonight, when I decided it was time for me to cook one. I don’t like cooking flesh. But, I cooked one of my chicken breasts. In the process, I developed an excellent recipe.
Chicken in a Bowl
Ingredients
Chicken breast
Bowl
*Edited to add* Pan, stove, canola oil (or olive oil?), herbes de provence, spatula, lid for the pan, your parents’ pantry, marinara sauce, parmesan cheese
1. Take chicken out of package. Cut off the parts that don’t look like chicken. Cut the chicken breast up into smaller parts. The swipe of your knife through the cold, dead flesh will feel DISGUSTING.
2. Put the chicken parts into a pan on the oven. No, it’s the stove that you want, not the oven. You will find that on top of the oven, the part that makes things hot. Make the bottom of the pan hot.
3. Is this pan non-stick? Maybe not? Go to pantry. See that there are two options: canola oil and olive oil. Okay, one of those should be good. Which one is the one you are supposed to use? Smoke point. Fatty acids. Rancid. ??? Use canola?
4. Put some canola oil in your pan. It’s okay if it goes on top of the chicken parts.
5. Remember that when you eat chicken, it usually has stuff on it. What is that stuff? Go into the pantry again. There should be a container of spices. Garlic powder, ground ginger, cinnamon, oregano…herbes de provence. Tiny little leaves that look like the leaves they put on chicken sometimes! Take that. Sprinkle some on the chicken parts, which should be getting hot by now. The oil might even be bubbling. That’s probably alright. When there’s enough tiny leaves on the chicken, put them back.
6. Check your email. Maybe someone wrote you. They didn’t, so that shouldn’t take too long. Go back and flip the chicken parts over using a spatula.
7. Put a lid on the pan? That seems like a good thing to do. Pro-tip: use a clear lid if you have one, so that you can monitor the status of the food.
8. Wait a little bit longer.
9. Cut the biggest chicken part down the middle. It should be a little bit pink, or else you did this all wrong. Wait! Chicken is the one that isn’t supposed to be pink. Put the lid back on, and wait a little longer.
10. Remember that sauce is pretty good. Go back to pantry. Find something good to make sauce. I suggest marinara sauce. The kind from Kirkland Signature doesn’t have any sugar, which is ideal. You don’t want sugar in your tomato sauce–that’s gross.
11. Pour some tomato sauce on your chicken. Wait a bit longer, so it gets hot, just like the chicken.
12. Transfer contents of pan to bowl. Cheese! You should put some parmesan cheese on that.
Congratulations, you made chicken! For the other two breasts you bought last Tuesday, may I suggest forgetting about them and throwing them away in a week or so?
This was great! And I thought *I* didn’t know what I was doing in the kitchen!
Yeah, a lot of people don’t know what they’re doing in the kitchen. That’s why I try to teach them.
Your tutorial is fabulous, you’ve made my day. I think I’m going to have to print this and keep it on my refrig, just in case I forget.
It was great to see you. Take care… Kitty
Thanks, Kitty! I’m glad I could share some skills. It’s always good to see you!
Absolute genius.