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How to Make Caprese Style Chicken Breasts with a Mixed Pepper Medley

Make Caprese Style Chicken Breasts

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Amy Riolo
Author, Cooking Instructor, Food Writer, Culinary Consultant
http://www.amyriolo.com/  
 

Amy Riolo is an internationally recognized culinary expert specializing in Middle Eastern and Mediterranean culture and cuisine. As a cookbook author, lecturer, food historian, food writer, culinary consultant, and cooking instructor, Amy promotes her philosophy of cooking and living with both pleasure and health. Her first book, Arabian Delights; Recipes & Princely Entertaining Ideas from the Arabian Peninsula has received rave reviews (Capital Books). Her second book Nile Style; Egyptian Cuisine and Culture (Hippocrene Books) will be released in spring 2009. She is also completing The Mediterranean Diabetes Cookbook, (American Diabetes Association) which will be released in spring 2010.

Amy’s popular lectures range in topics and include everything from Middle Eastern business etiquette to the history of various cuisines. She has been an invited guest speaker for the Embassy of the Arab Republic of Egypt, Welcome to Washington International, Montgomery College, Les Dames D’Escoffier, The Baltimore-Luxor-Alexandria Sister City Committee and the Mycological Association of Washington, DC. Amy also makes frequent appearances on numerous television and radio programs both in the United States and Egypt including Fox TV, Montgomery and Fairfax County TV, Nile TV and WHYY.           

Amy currently writes the “Culture and Cuisine” feature for the Baltimore- Luxor-Alexandria Sister City Committee. She has also written articles for Cooking Light Magazine, Azizah Magazine, and the Kulanu newsletter. A graduate of Cornell University, Amy has experience in vocational, recreational, and children’s instruction, as well as corporate team building and cultural/culinary events. Her knowledge of the Italian, French, Spanish, and Arabic languages has enabled her to interpret many cultures and cuisines with intimacy and ease. She regularly teaches cooking classes at Sur la Table in Arlington, Virginia, and for private organizations.

A successful culinary consultant, Amy enjoys developing menus, recipes, training seminars, and themes for corporations, restaurants, and hotels. Amy is often asked to work as a consultant for museums where she creates menus and décor which represent the theme of new collections. In addition, she works with curators to incorporate sensory components like scent, touch, and taste into the schedule of events, allowing museum patrons to fully experience each exhibit.

Amy is a member of The International Association of Culinary Professionals, Culinary Historians of Washington, Les Dames d’Escoffier, Slow Food DC, Welcome to Washington International (where she co-chairs the Gourmet Committee), Cornell Club of Washington, the Women’s National Book Association, and the Baltimore – Luxor – Alexandria Sister City Committee (Where she is the chairperson of the Baltimore Friends of the Alexandria Library). Amy is based in the Washington DC, area and maintains a home in Egypt. She is currently organizing culinary tours to both the Mediterranean and Middle East.

Make Caprese Style Chicken Breasts

 

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Tags:

Caprese

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Chicken

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Chicken breasts

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Pepper

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Medley

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Buffalo mozzarella

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Roma tomatoes

,

Healthy

,

Italian

,

Capri

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Make Caprese Style Chicken Breasts

Ingredients

For the Chicken:
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts (8 ounces each) sliced in half widthwise making 4 (4-ounce) pieces, pounded thinly
½ teaspoon kosher salt
Freshly ground Harris Teeter pepper
1 tablespoon H.T. Traders extra virgin olive oil
4 Farmers Market garlic cloves, minced
Pinch of crushed red chili flakes
¼ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 Farmers Market roma tomatoes, sliced into 8 slices each
4 ounces fresh mozzarella, shredded
¼ cup Farmers Market basil, finely chopped

For the Peppers:
3 tablespoons H.T. Traders extra virgin olive oil
2 pounds Farmers Market mixed red, yellow, and green bell peppers, cut into thin strips
6 Farmers Market garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup Harris Teeter green olives, pitted and diced
2 tablespoons H.T. Traders balsamic vinegar
Kosher salt, to taste

Instructions

1. To make the Chicken: Preheat oven to 425F degrees.   Season chicken with salt and pepper.

 

2. Heat olive oil in a large, wide, oven proof skillet over medium heat. Add garlic and chicken.  Cook chicken 5 minutes per side, turning once, or until golden.  Sprinkle crushed red chili flakes over the chicken and squeeze lemon juice over the top. 

 

3. Top each piece of chicken with 4 tomato slices and ¼ of the mozzarella. Transfer to oven and bake until chicken is cooked through (and a meat temperature inserted into the center of the breast registers 165F degrees), and cheese is golden (about 15 minutes). Remove from oven and top with fresh basil.

 

4. To make the Peppers: Heat olive oil in a large, wide skillet over medium heat.  Add peppers, and brown on each side. Stir in garlic and cook for 1 minute.

 

5. Add mixed green olives, reduce heat to low and cover. Cook for 20 minutes, or until peppers are tender. Stir in balsamic vinegar.  Taste, and add salt.

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Transcripts

Amy Riolo: Hi! I am Chef Amy Riolo. Today, we are making Caprese Style Chicken Breasts with a Mixed Pepper Medley. So lets begin.

The first thing that we will want to do is to put our large wide heat proof skillet onto medium to a medium-high heat and get the bottom really nice and hot. Once its heated through, we will add about a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil. So what I am doing now? Because the pan is nice and hot, I am able to coat the bottom with the olive oil. Its releasing a nice perfume. And I can go ahead and add my chicken breasts.

Now these are 2 chicken breasts which would be sliced in half to make them more thin and then pounded lightly to make them nice and thin like this. And you will get about 4 pieces doing that. I am going to keep my flame on medium and I will add my chicken breasts. We are just going to sear these on either side. Now I am going to add a few cloves of finely minced garlic. I am going to season it with some freshly ground pepper and a little bit of kosher salt. Kosher salt is nice because it has less sodium than regular salt. I am also going to add some crushed red chili flakes.

Nowadays you can buy the chili flakes in these little containers that have the grinder right built into them. You can tell when the chicken breasts are ready, when they pull easily off. If they resist you a little bit, it means they are not quite ready to turn over yet. So we can leave them for just a second. So these are ready to turn over now. You can see that hardly takes any time at all because these are so nice and thin, they get cooked in about 5 minutes. But we are going to put them into our oven which is pre-heated at 425 degrees, just to be safe that they are cooked through.

So what I am going to do now is I am going to add some lemon juice. Lemon juice gives us a great flavor, also a nice little shot of vitamin C in there. And as I do that, because our temperature is high, the lemon juice just gets absorbed right into the chicken and makes it nice and juicy. So if you have any concerns about chicken breasts being dry, this is a good recipe for you to try.

Now I am going to add our other ingredients, like our chopped basil. You could add a few tablespoons of chopped basil or chopped oregano, either one taste delicious in this dish. Now this dish is called Caprese Style Chicken Breasts. And what Caprese means is that something which is from the Island of Capri in the Amalfi Coast of Italy. It would be called Caprese; you could have a Caprese Cake. We know in America, this is very popular, the Caprese Salad, which is that mixture of mozzarella cheese and tomatoes. So we are doing the Caprese right on top of our chicken breasts.

So I am going to start by layering our thinly sliced Roma tomatoes and I am going to alternate that with our mozzarella di bufala. Now look how beautiful this mozzarella is. Bufala means buffalo in Italian. Traditionally, the mozzarella was made from fresh buffalo milk. The buffalos milk makes this mozzarella extra creamy and extra rich. So if you can find it, its really worth looking for. You are just alternating one slice against another, this is very free-form, you dont have to be exact. You want it to look nice, but more importantly, you really want it to taste nice. And it definitely will.

You can imagine when we put this in the oven, its going to melt and just taste absolutely wonderful and its going to look great too. So we are going to continue layering our tomatoes and mozzarella pieces to dish that the whole family will love. It can prove that eating healthy is fun and tasty. So now that we are done layering our tomatoes and our mozzarella, I am going to top it with a little bit more of our fresh herbs. I am using oregano today, basil is traditional in the dish, but you can use whatever you have.

Basil is actually very good for our health. So now that we are all layered up and ready to go, I am going to transfer the chicken into our oven. Its going to cook for about 5 or 10 minutes on 425 degrees, just until everything is melted and our tomatoes are cooked. Then we will be ready to serve it. So when we come back, we will make our sweet mixed pepper medley which is going to be the accompaniment for our Caprese Style Chicken Breasts.

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