Cooking School: Impressive Dinner

Chicken Tenders/Roasted Potatoes/Simple Green Salad

You have before you all of the instructions you need to make a nice dinner for your family. The recipe below is adjustable according the amount of people you will feed. You will need 12 different ingredients (well, 13 if you want to count salt and pepper as two different ingredients). Follow the steps below and you will impressive even the naughtiest person in your family.

What you need to make an impressive dinner for your family:
(If you are at the grocery store, this is what you need!)

1. Chicken Cutlets (or chicken tenders, 1-2 per person)
2. 1 egg
3. milk (just a splash)
4. bread crumbs
5. Spring greens salad (you need about one small handful of leaves per person)
6. olive oil
7. red wine vinegar
8. honey (just one squirt)
9. shallot (2 cloves, also known as “pink garlic”)
10. baby potatoes (3-4 potatoes per person)
11. herbs de provence
12. salt and pepper

Follow these steps in order:

Preheat the oven to 375 (for your chicken and potatoes).

1. THE POTATOES
Place your baby potatoes in a colander and wash them thoroughly. Dry those little babies, then spread them out on a cookie sheet (make sure they don’t sit on top of each other. You want one layer of potatoes). Pour 4 Tablespoons olive oil on your potatoes. With your hands, move those potatoes all around and make sure they are covered in oil. Add 2 Tablespoons of Herbes de Provence. (Herbes de Provence is a mix of dried herbs that is yummy on roasted vegetables, soups, eggs, and lots of other things. You can buy it any any grocery store.)

Put the pan of potatoes on the UPPER rack in the oven immediately, even if the oven isn’t finished preheating. The longer those potatoes have, the better! Set the timer for 15 minutes. Now, the potatoes probably won’t be done in 15 minutes, especially if the oven is still preheating. But, the timer will remind you to check on them.

(turn this page over for the chicken and the salad)

2. THE CHICKEN
Unwrap your chicken tenders, rinse them off in a colander, and pat them dry.

Pound your chicken tenders until they are nice and thin. Put all of them in a flat ziplock bag and pound them down with any can of food you can find. Just pound them until they are a little flatter than they came, but not too flat! If you pound them until they are too flat, the chicken will fall apart. Gross.

Make your egg wash. Crack your egg in a bowl, add a splash of milk, and mix together with a fork until it is well combined..

Put breadcrumbs and a dash of salt and pepper in a ziplock bag. You need about ¼ cup of breadcrumbs per chicken tender.

Bread your chicken tenders by bathing them in the egg wash, then shaking them in the bag of crumbs.

Lay chicken tenders on a baking sheet and place the sheet on the LOWER rack in the oven (because the potatoes are already on the upper rack). Set the timer for 15 minutes. Bake those tenders until they are golden brown.

While your potatoes and chicken are cooking, make your salad.

3. THE SALAD
Peel 3 cloves of shallot and thinly slice them, set aside.

Make the vinaigrette. In a tall glass, combine 2 Tablespoons red wine vinegar, 5 Tablespoons olive oil, dash of salt, a quick squirt of honey, and sliced shallots. Stir around, quickly, with a fork. Set this aside (The shallots will soak up the mixture and people will think you are very fancy pants.)

Place the leaves in a colander and wash them thoroughly. Lightly dry them with a paper towel.

Place the leaves in a pretty bowl but don’t add the dressing yet!

Pull the potatoes out of the oven when they are easily pierced with a fork.

Pull the chicken out of the oven when you can cut through a tender and see NO pink.

Put the potatoes in a pretty bowl. Put the chicken tenders on a serving plate.

Right before everyone sits down, pour your dressing all over the salad and toss the leaves with two forks.

EAT YOUR DINNER!