Chicken Dijonaise – revisited

It’s funny, how among the many links to my blog here, I keep seeing folks searching on the term "dijonaise". It would appear that my recipe has become rather popular — although I do have to admit that I got it originally from a book, and then adapted to my own needs. With that in mind, I offer you, my dear Imaginary Readers, a break from my political rants and an updated version of the recipe. Including an all-new VEGETARIAN VERSION! (No, not vegan, because it does include dairy products, alas, and the fake chicken includes egg products.) The recipe follows…

Dijonaise Sauce

• 1 cup mayonaise (Hellmann’s/Best Foods preferred, but you can use soy-based substitute)
• 1/4 cup dijon mustard (Grey Poupon preferred)
• 1/4 cup fresh grated or shredded parmesan cheese
• Pinch each of dill weed, sweet basil (can add any other spice you fancy, these just happen to be among my usual favorites)

Mix ingredients thoroughly, and adjust quantities to taste. Also, the amount of sauce listed above is enough for roughly six or eight chicken breasts; reduce or increase the recipe amounts as needed. I’ve even used this sauce as a vegetable dip (very tasty) and also as something I put on hamburgers (when I was eating beef…or Boca vegetarian burgers these days). Great stuff.

The Chicken and Marinade

I’ve been eating more vegetarian-style these days, but I still do have actual chicken from time to time. My preference for this recipe includes boneless, skinless free-range chicken breasts, particularly this one kind I found which has no added water. For this, I will trim away any fat or gristle, pound relatively flat, and then soak in a marinade consisting of:

• About 1 cup of regular Italian salad dressing
• Dashes of Lee & Perrin’s Worcestershire sauce, salsa brava, dijon mustard (again, yes), ketchup, and horseradish sauce
• A generous splash of soy sauce
• Pinches of dill weed, tarragon, sweet basil, cayenne pepper, salt and pepper

Mix well and soak the chicken in the marinade overnight. When cooking the chicken, feel free to add some of the leftover marinade to it as it’s cooking. As for the cooking, it’s done in a large, deep skillet at medium/medium-high heat. Lately I’ve taken to frying it to a nice golden brown using toasted sesame oil. Adds a lovely flavor.

Or, Faux Chicken

As I mentioned, we’ve been eating vegetarian-style a lot more lately, and we found this great product — Quorn Naked Cutlets. Basically it’s just shaped, textured vegetable protein (soy), and it’s remarkably chicken-like. Available in the frozen food aisle, assuming it’s available at all. They look like miniature unbreaded triangular-shaped frozen chicken breasts, sort of — but that’s not important. What’s important is they have the right texture and taste. I don’t do the overnight marinade with these though, because there’s no point, and you’re supposed to cook them while still frozen anyway. So what I do is I make up about 1 cup of the abovementioned marinade. Same skillet, same toasted sesame oil, but I usually cook 1 1/2 to 2 of the cutlets per person to be served (each Quorn box contains four total). Then I spoon on some of the sauce while the frying is going on. One note: These faux chicken cutlets, despite starting out frozen, only take about 1/3-1/2 as long to cook as real chicken. And I’d recommend just medium heat, not medium-high.

The Final Step

Pre-heat the oven to 400F (or centigrade equivalent). After the cutlets or chicken are nicely browned, blot gently with a paper towel to remove some of the oil/grease, then arrange on a non-stick cookie sheet. Spread generous amounts of the dijonaise sauce on each piece, then sprinkle with bread crumbs until well-coated. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes or until the coating begins to brown. After removing from the oven, remove all cutlets/chicken from the tray and put on a serving dish, otherwise the residual heat will cause the extras to burn.

Serving Suggestions

We often include with our meals the following:

• Fresh steamed green beans
• Fresh pasta
• Homemade marinara sauce

Fresh bread doesn’t hurt either, and there are almost always leftovers because this meal is suprisingly filling. Bon appetit!