[Recipe] [Blue Apron] Matzoh-Crusted Chicken with Orange, Fennel and Golden Beet Salad

Restaurants are bad.  There, I said it.

I don't mean they're bad as in, they don't serve delicious food.  I mean they're bad as in, the portions are gigantic and everything is smothered in butter and cream and deep fried.  It's so delicious, but it's also incredibly easy to gain weight, even if you keep otherwise relatively healthy habits.

As you've probably surmised, I love to cook, but I generally cook for one (except when I'm throwing a dinner party), and my worklife keeps me so busy that it's often difficult to go shopping for groceries.  Plus, there's the part where I live in NYC, making it much more difficult to shop for groceries alone—I just can't carry that many bags back with me from the store.  Never have I missed suburbia more.

Enter, "meals by mail," programs/packages that aim to make cooking as easy as, well, checking your mail.  For a fee, they deliver the precise amount of groceries you need to make a set number of meals for one or two people (or a family of four, if that's what you are) directly to your door.  The Blue Apron kit comes with beautifully photographed step-by-step instructions.

I had my first shipment this weekend and am already so excited about my refrigerator full of home-cooked meals, which I'll be bringing to work for lunch and/or dinner all week.  I'll be posting a few recipes from the program as I go, as well as pictures of some of the other meals (without recipes).  Check out this link to see which of these services is right for you-- and let me know your thoughts!

Matzoh-Crusted Chicken with Orange, Fennel and Golden Beet Salad

A recipe by Blue Apron

I decided to post this recipe, out of the three that I received this week, because I'm so enamored of this salad.

Ingredients

2 chicken breast cutlets, pounded

1/2 cup matzoh meal (if you don't have matzoh meal, panko bread crumbs will suffice)

1 fennel bulb

1 golden beet

1 red onion

1 navel orange

1 bunch parsley

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

2 tablespoons sugar

1/4 cup Dijon mustard

water
2 to 3 tablespoons canola oil

1 to 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
salt

pepper

Directions

1.  Prepare the produce.  Wash and dry all the fresh produce.  Peel and thinly slice the onion.  Peel the beet and cut it in half lengthwise; very thinly slice the halves.  Cut off and discard any fennel stems and fronds (that is, the green, thread-like tops of the plant).  Halve the fennel bulb lengthwise; remove and discard the core.  Thinly slice the fennel bulb.  Pick the parsley leaves off the stems; discard the stems.  Cut off and discard the peel and pith of the orange; medium dice the orange.

2.  Pickle the onion.  In a medium pan (non-stick, preferably), combine the sugar, vinegar, onion and 1/4 cup of water, and season with salt and pepper.  Heat to boiling on medium-high heat.  Once boiling, cook 1 to 2 minutes, or until the liquid is slightly reduced in volume.  Transfer the onions and pickling liquid to a heatproof bowl and set aside.  Carefully rinse and dry the pan.

3.  Coat the chicken.  In a large bowl, combine the mustard and 3 tablespoons of water.  Pat the chicken breast cutlets dry with paper towels; season with salt and pepper on both sides.  Place the matzoh meal in a bowl.  Working one at a time, coat the seasoned chicken cutlets in the mustard-water mixture (letting the excess drip off), then the matzoh meal (tapping off any excess).  Transfer the coated chicken cutlets to a plate.

4.  Cook the chicken.  In the same pan used to pickle the onion, heat a thin layer of canola oil on medium-high until hot.  Add the coated chicken cutlets and cook 3 to 4 minutes on each side, or until golden brown and cooked through.  Transfer to a paper towel-lined plate.

5.  Make the salad.  Reserving 1 tablespoon of the pickling liquid, drain the pickled onion.  In a large bowl, combine the orange, fennel, beet and drained pickled onion.  Add the reserved pickling liquid; drizzle with olive oil and toss to coat.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Here's the final product of the other recipe I liked in this batch: 

Korean Beef Dukbokki with Quick Kimchi and Fresh Peas

Dukbokki is a Korean cylindrical rice cake.  We Taiwanese have a rice cake as well—ours is flat, but I think, for these purposes, the cylindrical rice cake really kicks butt, as they're easier to saute in shallow oil for a crunchy exterior and soft interior that is seriously addictive.

One part of this recipe is especially worth repeating/posting: the "quick kimchi" was truly tasty and took very little time.  I'm not able to eat super spicy foods, so I don't usually love kimchi, but this was incredibly refreshing.

Ingredients
1/2 pound Napa cabbage
1 clove garlic
1-2-inch piece of ginger
(up to) 2 teaspoons gochugaru (Korean chili flakes)
extra virgin olive oil

Directions
1.  Wash and dry the fresh produce.  Peel and mince the garlic and ginger.  Cut out and discard the core of the cabbage; thinly slice the leaves.
2.  In a large bowl, combine the cabbage, the garlic, the ginger, and as much gochugaru as you like, depending on how spicy you'd like the dish to be.  Stir in a drizzle of olive oil and season with salt to taste.  Set aside and let marinate, tossing occasionally, for at least ten minutes.