By Ira
Chicken with Garlic and Oregano with a side of Garlic Bread and Green Salad
This is an easy meal that you can prepare on a weeknight. First, you can start by getting all the pieces ready in this order:
- Wash and dry the salad
- Prepare the salad dressing
- Cut the bread for the garlic bread
- Prepare the buttery garlic spread and spread it on the bread
- Half the chicken breasts and pound them
Now that everything is ready, you can:
- Toss the salad with the dressing
- Sprinkle the spices on the chicken breast and cook them
- Put the garlic bread under the broiler
Dinner is served! My kids like to eat this “sandwich” style by putting the chicken between 2 pieces of garlic bread.
Green Salad with Dressing:
- 1 package salad greens of your choice
- handful of baby tomatoes
Washing salad leaves
Wash and dry the salad and the tomatoes. Put it in a bowl, along with the cut tomatoes.
Salad dressing:
- juice of 1 lemon
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1 teaspoon dijon mustard
- 1 garlic minced
- salt and pepper
Squeeze lemon juice in a jar
Add mustard, minced garlic, salt, and pepper to the lemon juice
Add olive oil
Shake salad dressing
Put all the ingredients in a jar and shake.
Toss salad
Add a 3 or 4 Tablespoons of the salad dressing to your salad and toss.
Garlic Bread:
- 4 Tablespoons butter room temperature
- 3 garlic cloves minced
- 1/4 teaspoon sugar
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- Stick of French bread cut into slices (or any choice of bread)
I learned from America’s Test Kitchen that by adding the smallest amount of sugar mellows down the flavor of the garlic.
Mashing the garlic butter
Combine all the ingredients with a fork.
Spread butter on bread
Spread the mixture on the sliced French bread. Arrange the pieces of bread on a baking sheet, and broil on low for a few minutes until the edges brown slightly. Check the broiler every 15s as these brown very quickly! You can do this step when you finish cooking the chicken.
Chicken with Garlic and Oregano:
- 2 chicken breasts (or more depending on the number of people you’re serving)
- 1 lemon
- generous amount of garlic powder, oregano, and paprika
- salt and pepper
Cut chicken across
Slice the chicken across so that you get 2 pieces. You can do so by putting your hand flat on the chicken and guiding the knife across. Be careful! Do this slowly!
Chicken cut into 2 pieces
Pound the chicken
Cover the pieces on your cutting board with plastic wrap and pound the chicken until they become very thin.
Thin piece of chicken
Start heating up the skillet on medium high heat. If you have a large skillet, this will save you time.
Sprinkle lemon juice and spices on the chicken
On one side, squeeze half the lemon juice on the chicken, then sprinkle with salt and pepper, and then very generously with garlic powder, paprika and oregano.
Butter on skillet
Add a small amount of butter or oil to the skillet, then place the chicken pieces on it, spice side down.
Sprinkle again with lemon juice and spices
While the chicken is cooking, squeeze the other half of the lemon, and again with the salt and spices as before. Because the chicken is so thin, it will cook on one side when you finish adding the spices.
Flip to the other side and cook for a few more minutes until lightly browned (you can now put the bread under the broiler while the chicken finishes cooking).
