A Twist on a Twist

I had made Ina Garten's Chicken Piccata once before, but we felt that the lemon overpowered the other ingredients in the dish. I resolved then to try the recipe again and today was the day.

I have assembled the ingredients for the dish: flour, black pepper, salt, white wine, turkey cutlets, eggs, butter, lemon and bread crumbs. The recipe calls for seasoned bread crumbs, but all I had on hand are plain bread crumbs. I solved this problem by adding dried Herbes de Provence, salt, pepper and lemon zest.

First I floured the cutlet...

Before dipping it in the beaten egg...

And finally coating it in the seasoned bread crumbs.

The cutlets were covered and returned to the refrigerator for a couple of hours so that the coating would not fall off the meat when cooked.

The cutlets were cooked in olive oil over medium-high heat.

Once the cutlets had cooked, I removed them from the pan before adding butter and a splash of white wine to the pan. A squeeze of lemon juice finished off the sauce.

I drizzled a bit of the sauce over the cutlet. This was served with mashed potatoes and canned green beans that my daughter could eat after recently having her wisdom teeth out.

And what do you know? I was right. This is a good dish and using less lemon allowed the subtle flavor of the turkey to sing.

A Twist on a New Recipe

I have had a good bit of luck with Ina Garten's recipes from The Barefoot Contessa on Food Network and I really wanted to try her recipe for Chicken Piccata when it first came out. Unfortunately, that was also about the same time that I found out I am allergic to chicken. What to do? I was able to find a package of Turkey Tenderloin for Scallopini, which is turkey breast that has been thinly sliced. Ah, I thought, this is my chance. I didn't even have to whack the meat. Hmm, that might be a drawback...

I did use only 1/4 cup of lemon juice, rather than the 1/3 cup that Ina recommended and I omitted the lemon slices. I found that I needed 2 large eggs to coat all the meat. Also, as it is February in Southern Indiana, I have no fresh parsley on hand, so I also left that out.

Mis en place for the Turkey Scallopini.

The breaded turkey goes into a hot pan. Have I told you that I love this pan? No, really. I am in love.

The meat continues to cook. After it is cooked through, I remove it to a platter and place in a warm oven. On to the next step...

And I've found the perfect use for my new silicone whisk. The sauce is coming together.

The completed dish.

The verdict? This was an easy dish to prepare and took very little time once the meat had been breaded. The meat was tender and the breading was wonderful and not too much for the meat. However, the lemon flavor was far too strong for such a delicate dish. I will make this again, but I would definitely reduce the amount of lemon juice. But still, it's a decent start.