Fast food, Jacques’ way

On Saturday evening, my TiVo—yes, my TiVo: I hooked it up to Thom’s TV a couple of weeks ago, and configured the remote control to handle either his or my TiVo at the flip of a switch; it was pretty easy, but I feel like a technical genius—caught Jacques Pépin’s newest series, Fast Food My Way (produced by good old KQED). He made some chicken dish, and suddenly inspired I went to the kitchen to try and recreate it. It’s chicken breasts with garlic and parsley; he also called it poulet à la grenouille, since it’s prepared somewhat like frog’s legs.

The recipe isn’t available online, nor do I have an exact recollection of it from the TV, but it’s something like this: chop skinless chicken breasts into cubes. Coat them with flour and pepper, and sauté in oil. After they’ve lightly browned, add butter and chopped parsley. (I forget where the garlic comes in.) I used dried parsley, instead of fresh, but it all turned out rather well and was relatively quick and easy to prepare. (My previous attempt at cooking chicken according to M. Pépin was a much more laborious endeavor.)

To top it all off, I served it with greens and potatoes harvested at the peak of freshness and rushed overnight from our vegetable garden in the country. Heh, kidding. I just used a couple of packaged side dishes: Dole baby spinach and radicchio salad, and Green Giant roasted potatoes with garlic and herbs (comes frozen, and takes a few minutes to heat in the microwave). Seriously, where are my apron and pearls?

It’s not all of a sudden Martha Stewart over here, though. Tonight’s dinner: Lean Pockets.