Bitten by Bittman

Just made herb fried chicken from Mark Bittman's recipe in the NY Times and it was great. No, really. And I should point out I'm not a huge fried chicken fan; I usually find it too salty and too greasy and too mystery-meat. And it's frequently made with so many parts of chicken, all of which still tend to have the skin on. If you know me, you know that I am very particular about my meat; there are some very strict rules to which I adhere-- none of which I will bore you with now-- but suffice it to say that a big brown lump of fried chicken, as a general rule, tends to just leave too much up to guesswork. It's problematic for me, like the fried chicken bits in Chinese takeout: Will I bite into white meat or dark meat or, sorry, this one is just skin, or fat, or maybe just batter? I just don't like these kinds of surprises.

But this recipe uses skinless chicken breasts, (and I chose boneless breasts because when am I ever void of the giant bag of Kirkland boneless skinless chicken breasts in the freezer? Seriously. It's like we live at Costco. Only there are no free samples waiting for me, served by people in white shower caps and booties, when I come home. Sad. But, living at Costco would also mean really long lines all the time, probably even to just brush your teeth.)

What I like about this herb fried chicken is that it's sophisticated and flavorful without being chicken-of-the-sea-uber salty and the extra dredge in the flour helps it stay nice and crispy without being drippy with oil. Plus, you use olive oil instead of canola and you don't deep fry the darn things, so they seem a bit more healthy than the average KFC-esque fare. I used the peanut butter option instead of tahini (what the heck is tahini? And, more importantly, do they sell it at Costco?), but I chose the natural kind of peanut butter, not, say, Skippy-- which I also have, in Costco size. Don't be frightened-- you only add a smidge and I couldn't taste it at all in the finished product.

It's also truly a 15-minute recipe--which is key on a mid-week night after a long day at work. I do think I made the paste too thin (and Mark warned me!) because it didn't stick to the chicken so well prior to the first dredge in flour, and I didn't even add the full amount of oil for fear of making it too liquidy (heed Mark's warning, I said; he's Bittman-- he knows how to cook everything). Also, I should have pounded the breasts some because they were very thick in the middle, so cooking time was a bit longer than the suggested 4 minutes each side. But, served up with a delicious salad and some pugliese bread and roasted zucchini and baked sweet potatoes, this was a great centerpiece to a nice midweek meal. Also, we had guests. So it was best not to go with the normal midweek meal of Costco pizza.