Thursday, October 27, 2005

Just like Mamma makes



Breaded Chicken
Cooking and Canning with Mamma D’Amato Copyright 1997

¼ cup breadcrumbs (I may have used a little more and I used seasoned breadcrumbs)
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons butter
2 whole boneless chicken breasts, totaling about 1 ½ pounds ( I used chicken tenders.)
Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 37 5 degrees.
Combine bread crumbs and cheese.
Butter a large baking dish and set aside.
(I rolled chicken in melted butter first.)
Halve chicken breasts and roll in breadcrumb mixture.
Place in buttered baking dish.
Put a pat of butter on top of each chicken breast and season to taste with salt and pepper. (I added salt and pepper to the breadcrumbs and cheese mixture.)
Bake for 1 hour and 45 minutes. (Yes! this is what Mamma D’Amato said but obviously I didn’t have to bake my chicken tenders nearly as long.)

I’m not sure I can stretch it and say I followed this recipe Why can’t I follow a recipe these past few days? I could swear I was supposed to roll the chicken in melted butter first. I looked at several similar recipes, hence the confusion I guess.

Of course this was good. And simpler and less messy than flour, eggs, breadcrumbs – the method I grew up on. The cheese was a good addition to the coating. Just breadcrumbs is usually too boring to stand alone but this was good on it’s own.

I like this little cookbook from Senator (is he still a Senator?) Alfonse D’Amato’s mother, an authentic Italian grandma. The recipes are surprisingly simple and I doubt anyone who bought this cookbook is turning out food like Mamma D’Amato’s because we lack that Italian grandma magic. You can’t put that in a cookbook.

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