Not a good start for Spatula. I was not looking forward to my first week of cooking, since it was sure to involve cutting and stirring and things of that sort. I was not disappointed. One thing I've learned: read the recipe before starting the recipe. On multiple occasions during preparations I was so sure I knew what the next step would be I skipped the actual reading part before finding out that no, you weren't supposed to put the bread crumbs (which were made slice by slice in a small drink blender as we lack a food processor) directly onto the oiled pan; no you weren't supposed to just dip chicken into the buttermilk willy nilly without drying it; and no, you apparently weren't supposed to make a greasy and mostly tasteless dish that left you slightly nauseous afterwards. In fairness to me, the recipe didn't explicitly state that last bit.
When I actually got the thing in the oven, it was like I was under a police teargas raid. I opened all the windows, but nothing helped - my eyes were burning like I'd sprayed them with lemon juice Visene. What's with all the smoke Martha?!?
The end result looked something like this, and while I don't exaggerate when I say it was greasy and tasteless, it had a sort of charm that Spoon says was helped by the buttermilk. It was also pretty crispy which is a definate plus for me, though I likely could have gotten the same effect by stuffing potato chips in my mouth while eating plain chicken. I could have had different flavors that way too.
One final note...it has come to our attention that our blog should be titled 250 recipes in 365 days...if one is in agreement with the Gregorian way of thinking. However, Spoon and do not subscribe to this way of thinking. I will admit the number was an accident at first, but after much (wikipedia) research and discussion, we decided that no, we would not bow to the Tyranny of Pope Gregory XIII and his outdated calender. We would forge our own path! Fun fact: did you know that Pope Gregory XIII was for the banning of books? Basically, if you disagree with us, you hate books, including ones written by the kitchen elves of Martha Stewart Living. A year now has 350 days. Pass it on.
What's deceiving about this post is how good that chicken actually looks!
ReplyDeleteHahahaha @ 350/365 days fiasco.
That's faulty logic, Spatula. Maybe you should get a beard of bees while you're at it. But I'm all for the 350 days if you're cutting the additional 15 out of January or February. I just have a question: are the pictures from your kitchen, Martha's kitchen, or a combo of both? Because you said "the end result looked something like this", but Spoon pointed out the chopped lemon in the Lemon Parsley Pork Chops photo. I also noticed some beer caps under the Asparagus Gruyere Tart, which doesn't strike me as very Martha-like. Hopefully she likes you guys better than Julia Childs ended up like that Julia chick... how disappointing! Anyhow, your mother thinks that if those are all your pictures, you have a great selection of plates. I wonder if Martha likes ketchup with her chicken?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteSpoon tries to use our plates to their fullest so that our fans don't get bored, but you're going to start seeing more and more of the brown plates. Cause we like them.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, don't understand beard of bees reference, am going to look it up on trusty wikipedia. And yes, the days are from Jan. and Feb.
Chicken in buttermilk is really good once you get the hang of it. If you're marinating the chicken in it you can toss in salt and garlic cloves and even spices and it smells and tastes great.
ReplyDeleteThe smoking is probably the oil getting too hot. I don't know how the heck Martha makes it work.