Posts from — March 2008

The last thing I want to do after a craptastic day at work is cook. But after countless numbers of mediocre takeout meals, I finally realized that fast food doesn’t necessarily have to suck. This recipe makes enough for 2, or dinner for one plus leftovers for lunch (yay!) the next day.

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1/2 c. flour
1 egg, lightly beaten plus 1 T. water
juice of 1 lemon
salt and pepper to taste
3-4 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
1/3 c. chicken stock (a bullion cube in some hot water also works)
3 T. extra virgin olive oil
2 T. butter
1 T. capers (optional, if capers aren’t your thing)

1. Generously salt and pepper the chicken breasts, dip in egg mixture and dredge in flour.

2. Heat 2 T. of olive oil in a medium pan over medium high heat. Gently add the chicken breasts to the pan (they should sizzle, but not violently). Brown the chicken, 2-3 minutes per side. Be careful not to burn the oil … if it starts to smoke and turn brown, you’re f’d.

3. Remove pan from the heat and put cooked chicken breasts aside on a plate (cover with foil to keep warm). Add the remaining tablespoon of olive oil and the sliced garlic and heat on a medium flame. The garlic should soften and begin to cook slightly, filling your kitchen with a glorious garlicky perfume. If your oil is still super hot, the garlic will cook quickly and start to brown. If this starts to happen, remove the pan immediately from the heat (burnt garlic tastes gnarly). If you didn’t notice in time, and the garlic turns crispy and dark brown … remove it from the sauce, trust me, it will taste way better without it.

4. Add the chicken stock to help deglaze the pan. (Note: deglaze = scraping all the tasty brown bits leftover on the bottom of the pan from when you cooked the chicken, not licking the top of a Krispy Kreme.) Add the lemon juice and capers to the pan, and let the sauce reduce slightly by cooking it for another 2-3 minutes. If your chicken is cold by this point, just throw it back in the pan to heat it with the sauce.

My favorite thing to do is cut up the chicken and pour the sauce over pasta, but you can also eat this over rice or couscous (good for sopping up the sauce). If you’re feeling particularly healthy, you can nix the carbs and eat it on its own with a side salad. This meal is fast and easy (like your mom).

After nursing my all too familiar Sunday hangover for most of the morning, I decided to get out of bed and go searching for some decent pizza. I met a friend at Pizzeria Paradiso (2029 P St. NW) in Dupont, a small place with a wood-burning oven and an interesting choice of décor.

The border of the restaurant is filled with cartoon pizzas sporting colorful toppings, which in the right atmosphere could look kitschy chic, but just left me feeling confused when coupled with the painted sky ceiling (meant to give diners a sense of dining alfresco … or a reminder of how cheesy you were when you put up those glow-in-the-dark stars on your ceiling in fifth grade) and giant sun that screams “I shouldn’t have gotten that drunken tattoo over Spring Break because now I look like a walking ad for Raisin Bran” painted around the opening of the pizza oven. We started with one of the specials, crostini with mozzarella and proscuitto. It was pretty tasty, although the bread was a little soft to be bearing the name “crostini”– which is Italian for “crunchy goodness” (orrr “little toasts”).

For my main course I decided to go with the place’s namesake and get pizza. I’m not the type of adventurous (read: retarded) diner who orders the cheeseburger platter at Ling Ling’s China Garden.

I got the Genovese pizza, which replaced the traditional tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese with pesto, potatoes and parmesan cheese.

Overall the flavors were good, even with the absence of one of my favorite pizza components: melty cheese. When I think of pizza, I think of gooey, creamy cheese bubbling atop a crisp yet chewy crust. (Disclaimer: I am one of those New Yorkers who is a self-proclaimed pizza snob and believer in the “magic” water or whatever else people insist is the secret to that perfect New York slice.) Which leads me to the crust. The downfall that brings most pizza-making mortals to their knees faster than Lindsey Lohan in rehab and raises successful dough slingers to legendary status. Paradiso’s crust had the crispness that can only come from a pizza oven, but was more doughy than chewy and had a mushy, yeasty taste that was reminiscent of Domino’s. Although better than most of the other pizza I’ve had since I got to DC, Paradiso definitely is not one I’ll be writing home about any time soon. It wasn’t the best, in fact it would probably rank somewhere in the middle of my pizza-eating experiences (filed under “Forgettable”), but I would probably give it one more shot to see if it could go up any higher. (That’s what she said.)

Welcome to The Snarky Chef, a website dedicated to food and the sanctity of deliciousness. It’s a place for cooking, eating and most importantly … laughing.

I’m hungry, inappropriate, and my milkshake brings all the boys to the yard. No, seriously … my milkshakes are tasty.