Chicken Scaloppini Metamorphosis

There are some dinners that don't easily transform into a packed lunch for the next day. One such example is my Chicken Scaloppini recipe.

Scaloppini is, according to Wikipedia, an Italian dish consisting of thinly sliced meat (chicken, veal...) that is covered in flour, sauteed, and served in a sauce (perhaps tomato or wine based). I think this is the kernel reason that I love Italian cookery - complete flexibility, without any pretensions. Fry a bit of chicken and put it in a sauce (whatever you have lying around), and *voila* you have a Scaloppini! Bellisimo.

Anyway, my recipe for Chicken Scaloppini hardly follows even these lax rules. I don't flour my chicken breasts before I saute them (mainly to save time). Although, if you wish to, please feel free, I'm sure it would work wonderfully. Instead, I tend to rub the chicken with a little coarse salt and olive oil, and then grill it in my Le Crueset grillit, which produces gorgeous black char grilled stripes, and a delicious flavour.

The char grilled chicken breasts are then placed in individual oven-to-table dishes, in a sea of delicious tomato sauce, and covered with slices of mozzarella and a topping of your choice, then grilled on high until the cheese melts and sizzles.

The trouble with this recipe is that it simply does not work for lunchboxes. How do I get the chicken, the sauce, and the cheese into a Tupperware pot without the cheese getting muddled into the sauce in a higgeldy-piggeldy mess? It's impossible I tell you.

My solution is to make Chicken Scaloppini for my dinner, and a separate, slightly modified lunch of Grilled Mozzarella Chicken with Tomato Pasta.

Chicken  Scaloppini + Grilled Mozzarella Chicken with Tomato & Basil Pasta


Serves 2 for dinner + 2 for lunch

4 chicken breasts, flattened with a rolling pin
500ml jar of tomato and basil pasta sauce, or the same quantity homemade
125g bag of mozzarella
2 mugs of pasta (penne, fusilli...)
Topping e.g. salami, pepperoni, chorizo, peppers, mushrooms, Pepperdew, cherry tomatoes, basil leaves
Pesto (optional)

Begin by heating up your grillit/griddle/frying pan (or whatever utensil you will use to cook your chicken breasts). Next, flatten the chicken breasts with a rolling pin. I do this one at a time, inside a freeze bag to minimise mess. Rub the flattened chicken breast with some course sea salt and brush with a little olive oil. Place each breast in the pan, and cook on both sides, for about 10 mins total (this will depend on how thin your chicken breasts are, so don't forget to check for doneness).

Meanwhile, start boiling the pasta in water (with a little oil and salt added to the water, if you wish). In a separate pan, heat the tomato sauce gently - you want it to simmer, but to never boil.


Slice the mozzarella, and prepare any of the toppings you wish to use.

Place 2 of the cooked chicken steaks into 2 oven-to-table dishes. Cover each in 1/4 of the tomato sauce each. Cover each dish with a layer of mozzarella slices, reserving 2 slices for the other chicken breasts. Place the toppings on top of the mozzarella and place under the grill for 5 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and sizzling.

Spread the two remaining chicken breasts with pesto on one side, and place a slice of the reserved mozzarella on top. Pop them on a tray, and stick them under the grill as well.

Meanwhile, mix the pasta with the remaining tomato sauce. Spoon this into two Tupperware containers. Place the mozzarella chicken on top. I like to add some veg to the tub as well (broccoli florets, peas, french beans, sweetcorn). The veg will get heated up in the microwave with the rest.

Serve the Chicken Scaloppini with some nice veggies.

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Leftovers for Lunch - Smoky Chicken and Bean Stew

I get my food shopping delivered fortnightly on a Thursday night, so last night (Wednesday) was one of those empty fridge sort of dinners. A dinner which instead of being premised on 'hmm, what do I fancy...?' was instead decided on the factor of 'hmm, what can I do with this plus that, minus everything else...?) I had run almost completely out of fresh stuff, no cheese, no eggs, no milk, and so I was in need of a store cupboard solution.

After some digging around I found a pack of chorizo slices at the back of the fridge. I knew there was a pack of 4 chicken breasts in the freezer, and I also I found a red pepper which needed to find a home promptly, unless it were to be destined for chez bin-bag.

So, what to make? I grabbed some recipe books and had a browse around some of my favourite recipe websites. I came across a rather yummy recipe called Smoky Chicken and Bean Stew on www.bbcgoodfood.com and rooted around my cupboards to see if I had the other necessary ingredients. I lacked berlotti beans, but I did have a tin of cannellini beans that would do just as well. Everything else, miraculously, I had in stock!

One other thing to mention before I begin, is that this stew calls for only 15-20 mins of simmering once all the ingredients are in the pan. What could be better for a midweek dinner?

And so, to work!

Smoky Chicken and Bean Stew - scaled to serve 4 and slightly adapted

2 small red or white onions, sliced
4 garlic cloves, crushed (I like garlic... a lot...)
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp chilli powder
1 red pepper, diced
4 chicken breasts (or 8 chicken thighs - for a richer flavour), diced
3/4 pack of chorizo slices, cut into strips
400ml chicken stock
400g tin of berlotti/cannellini/butter beans

Pitta or thick crusty bread, to serve

Heat the olive oil in a big heavy pan (a big casserole is perfect), and fry the onion gently until it starts to soften. Add the garlic and continue to cook until the onions are softened and slightly golden.

Add the chilli, paprika and peppers to the pan, and sizzle for 1-2 minutes before adding the chicken and the chorizo to the pan for a further 2-5 minutes until the chicken is sealed.

Next, add the stock and tomatoes, and bring to a gentle simmer. Then add the beans, and allow the whole pot to continue simmering for 15-20 minutes until nicely thickened.


Wow - could any recipe that quick and simple really be delicious? Surprisingly yes! I usually find "30 minute" recipes bland and insipid, but not this one. The addition of the beans meant that the whole thing had thickened up nicely even after just 15 minutes, and it had acquired a real depth of flavour too.

I made scaled the recipe up to feed 4 so that I could take the leftovers to work (if you want the original recipe to feed 2, follow the link at the bottom of the post), and it was even more delicious the next day.

The only thing I might do differently next time (and there will be a next time), is to add some extra water to the leftovers, to turn the 'stew' into a 'soup'.

The original recipe suggests serving this with rice or pitta, which of course you could, however, I think this really belongs with some thick crusty bread for mopping up those juices. Yum.

Ciao.

Recipe adapted from www.bbcgoodfood.com
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/7268/smoky-chicken-and-bean-stew