Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Barefoot Contessa's chicken breasts with goat cheese

I've watched countless hours of Barefoot Contessa, a few while J was sneering at her from behind his laptop. He thinks her show is contrived. I love her. She makes cooking look effortless as opposed to Rachel Ray who makes me twice as anxious as I already am. Anyway, I have seen her roast the same chicken breasts stuffed with goat cheese a lot and I finally got around to trying it.

Uncle RaRa turned me on to the juiciest roast chicken breasts with the crispiest skin that I have ever had. Which is this:

You season the bone-in, skin on breasts as you wish and cook them at 500 degrees for a shorter period of time. All ovens differ and all breasts are different sizes so the time ranges from 20-30 minutes.

So I was skeptical when Ina's recipe called for cooking them at 325 degrees. I was sure that the skin would be limp. Oh, but the BC pulled through as always. The breasts were so juicy and the skin so crispy. Now, because I didn't put full faith into her (my mistake) I did turn up the heat to about 425 for 15 minutes because I wanted brown, crispy skin. The result was that the goat cheese oozed out of the skin. So follow the cooking temperature exactly. Don't try to go all renegade on her. I also didn't use herbed goat cheese because I'm not a fan. I just salt and peppered my little fellas and sprinkled some thyme on top. See below for the final picture. It wasn't as neat as Ina's but I know it was just as delicious.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

YUM!! Her chicken with 40 cloves of garlic is also delicious.

Anonymous said...

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