And, here we go…

Just dive right in that’s what I always say. Well, maybe not always, but this time at least. It was hard making a choice on what to start this thing off with. Should I work through the book from start to finish or just hopscotch around? A tough decision. But, after looking through the book for hours on end, I finally decided to cook from different chapters using the most seasonal and freshest ingredients I could find at the time. There was also something else looming…

I have a confession to make right off that bat. I’m not a baker. There I said it and now I feel better. So, my decision on how to cook through the book was partly based on my fear of having to work straight through the baking section towards the end of it. I could have tackled most everything else in order, but having to face that baking section and at the end of what I hope will be a great experience seemed too scary. Maybe the result of all this will be a new found love and appreciation for the art of baking! Wishful thinking.

Well, we had to start somewhere, so why not with a recipe that has two parts. The first part is the prep and the second part is cooking the actual dish.

This recipe is going to be a two part post. The recipe that I will ultimately be making is, Sauteed Fillets of Breast of Chicken with Lemon and Parsley, Siena Style. Thankfully, the title is more intimidating than the actual dish. I chose this one to start with because it has a cooking skills lesson as the first part of the instructions. The lesson is on boning and filleting a chicken breast. This is something I figured I should know how to do the right way at some point anyway, so why not get some instruction from a pro from the beginning. Now, I may not be a professional chef, but I have cut up my share of poultry in the past. But, was I even doing it close to correctly? I’m certain that Marcella’s years of experience would yield a much better result than I was getting!

I decided to use this method exactly as it was written in the book and disregard anything I had taught myself in the past. I was a little doubtful that the short two page instructions with only two diagrams would be enough to actually explain how to do this without leaving me a with a big pile of hacked up chicken breast. I was determined to see if the description of the steps would yield a good result. I was already thinking what I could make with the future remnants of my first attempt.

With my trusty filet knife and two whole chicken breasts I was ready to give it a whirl. I read through the directions one last time. Here goes… WOW! I was amazed at how right on the instructions were. I thought for sure there was going to be a moment in the process where I would just have to wing it (so to speak).

Not so. It was easy. The whole thing took about ten minutes for both breasts. They even looked like they had just come out of a store bought package of boneless skinless chicken breasts. Now for the last part, the filleting. Easy once again, Could not have been easier in fact. When I was finished, not only did I not have a mass of unusable chicken meat, but I had four very uniform and surprisingly well trimmed chicken fillets. I think I should get an A in Marcella’s Chicken Fillet 101.

As for the photography, I’m just learning how things work. I think the shot of the finished plate (left) is OK. I’ve got a couple of pretty nice shots of the final dish for the next post.

Next, we’re going to try to put this recipe together using our newly filleted chicken breasts. How exciting!