A Bit About Butter

My mother  has been a lifelong devotee of butter, and I have inherited that from her too. I’ve never liked margarine, and for those of you who would argue that it is “healthier”, wake up. It’s fat. It’s not healthy either and it tastes like crap. Margarine is also made of vegetable oils that have been artificially inflated to gain solid form, and like most imitations is never as good as the original (and butter came first, cause all you have to do is shake some cream and it turns to butter, no technology involved), so nyah, nyah :P For those of you who are vegetarians out there, it’s a moral choice, (and I also say WHY?? Just kidding. Sometimes I go through phases where I don’t really care if I eat meat, but then I just get a hamburger craving). Anyway, there are arguments for both cases, and I stick to butter. (haha, nice pun, hmm). I'm sure there's a good debate out there, but I for one cannot be budged from my pro-butter stance.

Actually, here is one childhood margarine memory. Once upon a time, my mother decided that butter was “much too good for children” (yes, that’s a la Ms. Trunchbull from Matilda), and decided to buy us margarine because it was cheaper and we were like hoovers with food, and money was tight. I can still remember the dark turquoise container it came in with the unsightly and unnatural orange colour of the margarine glowering at us from inside. Scary. And gross. The only good thing about it for me was that it was salty. Then we discovered her secret stash of butter, and that was it. I don’t think she made us eat margarine after that. I must say margarine has come a long way from the seventies oranginess, and now actually looks like butter, but don’t be fooled, it’s still revolting. So the moral of that story, let your kids eat the good food you eat too!!

I’m not saying go out and eat butter by the spoonful, I’m just saying it makes good food taste great, and sometimes a little goes a long way, although there really isn’t any such thing as too much butter. So you only eat lettuce and drink water the next day, it was WORTH it!! Right?? Moderation. That’s when you can do it anyway.







 So maybe a quick recipe, just so you know this is a food blog?? Steve didn’t think my first blog said much about food (and I thought “What do you mean???? It’s all about food….and  I was introducing myself! I know there was a lot of random nothing in it, but that’s just how I write.) I’m learning. Bear with me.  Okay, here is my recipe for chicken schnitzel, which my mum used to make with veal when I was a kid, except we called it veal scallopine. It just shows how good this is, because different cultures have similar foods, with different names! My daughter loves to make this sometimes, and she can make Minute Rice in the microwave, so I get the chicken prepped for her and then she takes off and makes dinner (it hasn’t happened lately, but I should let it happen moreJ) It's cooked in butter, not just oil, which makes it better.

  

Chicken Schnitzel (not my photo, I'll get one up soon)

Okay (to serve 4) I never use measurements so I am just estimating here.

• 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts (or use veal if you like, it’s also good)
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup of milk
• ½ cup of flour
• 2 cups breadcrumbs
• 2 TB Butter
• 2 TB Olive oil
• Sea Salt
• Pepper
• Seasoned salt
• Garlic powder

Okay, first I trim all the fat and disgusting things off the meat. (My mum is very meticulous about it, so I am too, except she spends a lot more time cutting out little bits of gross stuff, where I just chop off big chunks of stuff because I can’t handle fiddling around with all those little veins and sinews. I don’t care if I lose some of the meat with it, because if I eat something disgusting partway through my meal I will not be able to finish eating it. It’s just my issues with meat but there we go. I know people will tell you that that stuff all cooks right in, and well, that just doesn’t make me feel better. It’s still in there lurking somewhere, ready to make me gag. I’d rather just cut it all off and know there won’t be any unpleasant surprises for me. It’s why I will NEVER eat ground chicken. Yuck. If you serve it to me, I will be polite and eat it, unless I encounter something gross, where I will say “Wow, this was great but I am really stuffed now. I can’t eat anymore”. I’m sorry. It’s just the way it is. Okay, thought this would be a fast recipe, but forgot about my penchant to ramble on. Here we go.)

Trim the fat off the meat. I had a wooden meat pounder that I used to flatten chicken breasts, but it got left outside (not sure why it was out there, I’ll just blame the kids) and rained on and ruined. So I started to cut the chicken in half um, so I had two thin pieces of meat, not just in half so it was two big chunks. Cut in half horizontally? I guess. But I recently bought a really great meat pounder from Barb’s awesome kitchen store (called Homecoming, it’s also on King Street in Midland, across the road and up the block from our store, check it out here Homecoming, Midland), and I used it the other day, and it was GREAT.  You don’t really have to pound it hard, you almost need to drop it gently onto the chicken, ‘cause it can do a lot of damage. Okay.

Trim the fat, cut the chicken in half horizontally, (if you want more, or just leave the chicken breast whole) put it between two sheets of cellophane and pound it thinner. By the way, if there are lots of kids eating this, you can cut up lots of smaller pieces of chicken for homemade chicken fingers or nuggets.

Place flour in a bowl, and add a little salt and pepper (1/4 tsp maybe?)

Place eggs in a separate bowl and beat, then add milk

Place breadcrumbs in another bowl and season to taste (1/2t of s&p and seasoned salt,  1t garlic powder?)

In a frying pan melt some butter with olive oil (some, use whatever you like, you can’t have too much, if you don’t have enough sometimes it burns). Use a low-medium heat. (It’s better to have it take a little longer and cook well, than to try to cook it faster and have it burn).

Here’s where kids like to help. For each piece of chicken you will dredge it first in flour, then coat it in the egg mixture, then coat it well with bread crumbs. Fry until golden on both sides. 


For grownups (or non-picky children, so never when they're eating it here) I will sometimes omit the garlic powder from the bread crumbs and roughly chop up about 4-5 cloves of garlic and add it to the butter before I put the chicken in.  Then I cut up a lemon and serve the chicken  with a wedge or two of lemon!! Ta-da, in only five million easy steps, you have chicken schnitzel. This is such a basic easy recipe, but so tasty. It’s my basic chicken prep for Chicken Parmigiana too. Serve it with rice and your favourite vegetable. Or on a bun. Or eat it by itself. Totally up to you.