Diet is important, but cooking however can take forever. But like Starcraft, dieting and cooking require some skill to execute. Don't be a chobo and "cheese" your dinner with fast-food or cup-o-noodle. Treat your body right by cooking right with this easy recipe. If you can 4-gate you can cook this dish.
Skills Needed and Learned in this Recipe
Here is a short list of the basic skills you will need or learn during this recipe.
How to start stove fire, crack an egg, measure amounts of ingredients, oil a pan, boil water, chop vegetables. How to season chicken with salt, pepper and garlic. How to cook spaghetti al dente or semi firm. How to plate spaghetti. How to cut cooked chicken. How to bread and fry breaded chicken.
If you don't think you can handle any of these basic cooking skills maybe you should do some research on the ones you're unsure of before starting to cook. Last thing you want to do is blank out.
Ideally you should practice making this dish several times with friends or family. Try cooking a taste batch without plating for some of your co workers, get feedback on the tastes. It is crucial they are brutally honest.
Ingredients List
Boneless Chicken Breast 1 per serving 1 Egg per 2 Breasts 2/3 cups of Bread Crumbs per Chicken Breast. Clean Water Salt and Pepper 1-2 tablespoon per Breast Garlic, 1 clove per Breast. Spaghetti Noodles (I use Costco Brand) Spaghetti Sauce (I use Ragu Marinara) Garnishing (cilantro, sesame leaf, whatever you prefer)
TIP: If you do not have bread crumbs a GREAT alternative is grinding up Cheerios into a powder/crumb. I actually experimented a little with the Cinammon Cheerios and it tasted interesting.
Tools List
2 Pots 1 Pan 1 Knife 1 Plate for Cooking 1 Bowl 1 Chopping Board 1 Spoon 1 Set of Measuring Cups
Food Preparation Prepared up to 24-48 hours before cooking.
The Night Before Seasoning the Chicken The night before you want to take your boneless chicken breasts/tenders in a mixture of about 1 tablespoon salt, 1 tablespoon pepper and 1 crushed garlic per breast and put it all in a ziploc bag. There should be some meat juices creating a sparse coating over the breasts, if there is no juice add 1/8th cup of water to help it season. Put the meat in your refrigerator over night, this process is called brine-ing. It is OK if you get caught on short notice, you do not need to brine them over night, you can just take your water/juice, salt, pepper and garlic and put them in a tub together with the chicken breast and using a fork poke a couple dozen holes on each side of the breast thats 6-7 stabs on each side.
15-30 Minutes Prior to Cooking Prepare the Bread Crumbs on a plate. Prepare the Eggs, crack them into a bowl and whip them into an even mixture. You can choose to take out yolks if you're watching cholesterol/fat.
5-10 Minutes Before Cooking Start boiling your water at about 10minutes before. Add 2 tablespoons of salt to the water if you like your noodles firm. Take your breasts out of the brine, dip them in the egg mixture and make sure they get completely covered in egg. Take the breasts out of the egg and put them on the plate with breadcrumbs. Make sure both sides get well coated with breadcrumbs. Put your marinara sauce from the store in a pot and start simmering it about 5 minutes before on low. Make sure to check every 3-4 minutes and stir.
Cooking the Meat
1. Turn on the stove to high, oil the pan moderately, take the chicken out of the bread crumbs and straight onto the pan.
2. After 10-15 seconds on one side, flip it. This is to even out the oil to both sides so they both fry, If you keep it on one side, only one side soaks up oil and fry. Turn the stove down from high to medium/medium high (enough to hear a very faint sizzle).
3. After you put the meat on the pan, you should put your spaghetti noodles into your boiling water. Remember to check on noodles every 3-4 minutes and stir.
4. After cooking one side til golden brown (about 5-6 minutes) flip and cook the other side til brown.
5. After meat is cooked, put on chopping board and let it cool for a couple of minutes. Meanwhile you should check for your spaghetti noodles to finish cooking. Taste a noodle to check how firm it is. Cook to your liking.
6. Once your spaghetti has finished cooking, immediately dump it into a strainer and rinse it with cold water. This will make sure it does not continue cooking while you finish the rest of the components. You should turn off the stove for the sauce at this point as well.
7. Cut your cooked meat into slices, preferably bite size slivers. You can choose to keep the breast whole but for the plating style I chose today I cut them into 1/4 inch slices.
8. At this point you should have sauce, noodle and meat done and ready to plate.
Plating
1. Take the noodles, straighten them in your hand and place them on a plate in a nest-like layout.
2. Add any garnish and place chopped meat along the top of one side of your spaghetti bowl.
3. Drizzle hot sauce in middle of spaghetti nest, covering the meat partially, it's your choice to let the sauce overflow and drip out of the bowl.
4. When finished, serve and enjoy. Impress and smile in pride at your accomplishment! Snap a picture!
oh man, this looks soooooo good. The pics look amazing, makes me feel hungry all of a sudden . I will definitely try this recipe out sometime. Thank you master chef for sharing this!
Looks amazing, and it's extremely simple. I commend you on your excellent plating and photography skills as well as your cooking.
A couple things about the dish itself though. You say to use a whole tablespoon of salt and only the natural juices from the chicken or 1/8 cup of water. I will say that I do not know how well it works in practice, but just hearing it it sounds like a shit-fuck-ton of salt. It doesn't seem like much of a brine with such a small amount of liquid. It's more like a salt slush/rub. Do you end up rinsing off a lot of it after you take it out of the brine? I could see it being a bit more acceptable if you do.
Don't rinse your pasta. If you're worried about it being overdone, just pull it a little before it's at the al dente state. Rinsing it removes a lot of the starch that will help the sauce stick to the pasta.
This is a pretty basic recipe which I'm sure a lot of people will find useful. I work in a kitchen so this is way too organised for my liking haha. Recipes are an empty canvas for experimentation :D
Just a couple of things, adding salt to the water for the pasta does nothing for the firmness. Also, you should add in somewhere to leave the chicken out to rest for ~30 minutes to let it get to room temperature so the meat doesn't tense up when you put it in the pan.
Looks awesome, but next time please do a simple sauce yourself. Its so easy and it will taste just so much better :-)! I will try it next time, your serving looks great .
Dish looks good but you commited a deadly cooking sin:
You never ever ever ever rince pasta, especially in cold water.
If your water became very starchy because you cooked it in too small a pot, it might be worth rincing with boiling water if you plan on making pasta salad.
2. After 10-15 seconds on one side, flip it. This is to even out the oil to both sides so they both fry, If you keep it on one side, only one side soaks up oil and fry. Turn the stove down from high to medium/medium high (enough to hear a very faint sizzle).
I want to try this. Surely you mean minutes here, right?
2. After 10-15 seconds on one side, flip it. This is to even out the oil to both sides so they both fry, If you keep it on one side, only one side soaks up oil and fry. Turn the stove down from high to medium/medium high (enough to hear a very faint sizzle).
I want to try this. Surely you mean minutes here, right?
Pretty sure he means, put it 10-15seconds ob one side, flip it, keep it a little while, then flip it over so the initial side cooks too. You don't want one side to get all the oil, and then have the 2nd side just cook, you still want it to get fried.
If you are worried about pasta overcooking due to heat instead of using cold water use an ice bath. Your pasta will drop down in temp almost instantly and you don't have the same loss of starch. However this should only be used in the case of storing pasta for use later (ie high volume cooking of pasta) if you are only making a small few portions, never rinse.
Also, a pasta should be tossed in the sauce, as nice as your plate looks, you will end up having to mix your pasta in with the sauce while eating, and with how you plated it that will end up being very messy. If is easier to toss the spag with the sauce in a pan/pot, and then place on a plate or in a bowl, top with chicken.
On August 23 2011 08:47 BloodyC0bbler wrote: Also, a pasta should be tossed in the sauce, as nice as your plate looks, you will end up having to mix your pasta in with the sauce while eating, and with how you plated it that will end up being very messy. If is easier to toss the spag with the sauce in a pan/pot, and then place on a plate or in a bowl, top with chicken.
some people toss their pasta in the sauce thats true, I toss my pasta in oil and you actually just wrap some spaghetti around your fork then stick a piece of chicken on that fork and dip into the sauce, makes for a nice experience. Besides the plating is just to make it visual appealing and give it that WoW factor.
Thanks everyone for all the comments! I really like the idea of a starcraft 2 cook book, we need to educate gamers on eating right!
I would buy a cookbook with this title. Looks much tastier than the simple pasta and hot dogs
I believe its ramen and hotdog. Apparently spaghetti takes more effort to cook then a pack of maruchan.
The build order would look like this:
[0] Chicken, Pepper, Salt, Garlic [9] Pylon [15] Breadcrumbs, Eggs send scout. [18] Pylon [20] Research Dip from your Eggs [22] Research finishes, convert chicken into breaded chicken [25] Upgrade heat to 2 on pan. [26] Pylon [27] Begin pumping out cooked chicken from pan. [30] Begin researching Boil in Pot. [34] Pylon [40] Boil Research should complete, begin pumping out spaghetti. [40] Push out some sauce from your other pan [42] Pylon [42] Begin upgrading chicken to slices at your cutting board [45] Spaghetti should finish just as sauce finishes. [50] Bring your units to front of enemy plate. Timing push on their front, roll their army and win.
On August 23 2011 13:19 [uci] Fizik wrote: Apparently spaghetti takes more effort to cook then a pack of maruchan.
The build order would look like this:
[0] Chicken, Pepper, Salt, Garlic [9] Pylon [15] Breadcrumbs, Eggs send scout. [18] Pylon [20] Research Dip from your Eggs [22] Research finishes, convert chicken into breaded chicken [25] Upgrade heat to 2 on pan. [26] Pylon [27] Begin pumping out cooked chicken from pan. [30] Begin researching Boil in Pot. [34] Pylon [40] Boil Research should complete, begin pumping out spaghetti. [40] Push out some sauce from your other pan [42] Pylon [42] Begin upgrading chicken to slices at your cutting board [45] Spaghetti should finish just as sauce finishes. [50] Bring your units to front of enemy plate. Timing push on their front, roll their army and win.
Haha, that's golden. Also, the pictures in your OP have made me ridiculously hungry at such an ungodly hour. I'm gonna have to try the recipe sometime.
On August 23 2011 05:51 Ruyguy wrote: please make a starcraft cookbook for college kids. I would buy that shit up in a second.
This is a cool idea. We can all put up a recipe linked to the thread and turn it into a cookbook kinda blog. People can rate each others recipes etc.
Every recipe has to be a form of sc2 pun though : Neo-Garlic Chicken plating upgraded Spaghetti bunker with Marineanara sauce.
Yeah I'm thinking something along the lines of 1-base cattlebruiser burger with a touch of bronze sauce haha
On August 23 2011 07:13 tl4life wrote: Dish looks good but you commited a deadly cooking sin:
You never ever ever ever rince pasta, especially in cold water.
If your water became very starchy because you cooked it in too small a pot, it might be worth rincing with boiling water if you plan on making pasta salad.
Happy cooking TL!
If you rinse your pasta/rice through cold water before putting it in the pot is gets rid of the starch.
On August 23 2011 05:51 Ruyguy wrote: please make a starcraft cookbook for college kids. I would buy that shit up in a second.
This is a cool idea. We can all put up a recipe linked to the thread and turn it into a cookbook kinda blog. People can rate each others recipes etc.
Every recipe has to be a form of sc2 pun though : Neo-Garlic Chicken plating upgraded Spaghetti bunker with Marineanara sauce.
Yeah I'm thinking something along the lines of 1-base cattlebruiser burger with a touch of bronze sauce haha
Haha! someone make this happen! Come on liquipedia team, side project go!
On August 23 2011 07:13 tl4life wrote: Dish looks good but you commited a deadly cooking sin:
You never ever ever ever rince pasta, especially in cold water.
The reason I was taught to rinse the pasta and oil it afterwards was for better storage and to cool the pasta from cooking itself in its own starch juices. I am very picky about how hard my pasta is and a lot of people think straining the pasta after cooking is enough to stop it but I sometimes find the hot water that sticks to the pasta continues to cook it until it becomes soggy. By rinsing and oiling it the spaghetti stays just right and does not dry as fast.
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. I will definitely try this recipe out sometime. Thank you master chef for sharing this!
