HOW TO DO IT

Tarragon Mustard Chicken
Roasted Red Potatoes
Seasonal Vegetables
aka
Roasted Vegetables
aka
Grilled Vegetables
aka
Farmer’s Market Vegetable Medley (butternut squash, crookneck squash, zucchini, carrot)

1. Oven somewhere between 325 and 500+, depending on how considerate your coworkers are regarding your need to bake chocolate chip cookies at some point in the morning. Most likely 500+.

2. Hopefully you have already cut the butternut squash into 1” cubes and made the carrots into little angular polygons of approximately 1.5 cubic inch (I use “quick tourne” to describe the shape. You peel a carrot and make diagonal slices along the length of the carrot, doing a ¼ -roll of the carrot after each slice). The crookneck and zucchini should be halved giraffe-ways. Toss all of these separately in oil and salt and pepper (more salt than pepper, and not too much oil, and a generous amount of salt and pepper, honestly. So that they look appetizing: speckled and shiny). Put the carrots on a baking sheet with parchment and the butternut on a different baking sheet with parchment and either set a timer or remember that they are in the oven. Grill the other two on grill pans or on a griddle. Or you could blanch them. In that case, toss with oil and s&p AFTER blanching.

3. Wash the potatoes (dry them if you can). Toss with oil, s&p and put on a baking sheet with parchment and put them in the oven (do not forget about them).

4. Fillet the boneless chicken breasts into thin cutlets and pound them between two sheets of plastic wrap with a mallet, not too aggressively. Get a piece of nicotine gum* going before you start this step or you will end up with chicken jelly (*if necessary).

5. Mix some salt and pepper with some all-purpose flour and dip the chicken pieces in the mix. They will look velvety with no excess flour pooled in the crevices of the chicken.

6. Melt butter in a sauté pan and when it is hot enough, add enough chickens to fill but not crowd the pan. This will look like a map of the earth a little after Pangaea began to split up.

7. Golden-brown the chickens on both sides and put on a baking sheet. If they are cooked through, let them cool a bit and then slice each in half. If they are underdone, put in the oven for a while. You should have oven space because you have not forgotten about the vegetables.

8. Melt some more butter with chopped garlic or shallots and rip up the tarragon with your hands. Add chicken stock, tarragon, white wine and Dijon. Stir a bit and season. Adjust everything until it tastes awesome.

9. Pour the sauce over the chicken on the plate and arrange some potatoes and vegetables (mixed) and garnish with a tarragon sprig. At the last minute add three pieces of raw asparagus (only for photographic purposes—DO NOT EAT).















1. Here is the completed dish. To the top right is my knife, an 8” Wusthof Hollow-Edge Chef’s. I love it. To the top left is Danny’s cleaver.