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

Make Mixed Pepper Medley

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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 Mixed Pepper Medley

 

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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

,

Buffalo mozzarella

,

Roma tomatoes

,

Healthy

,

Italian

,

Capri

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Make Mixed Pepper Medley

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. In this segment we are actually going to be making our mixed pepper medley. So lets get started.

So the first thing that we will need to do is to heat our pan over a medium-high heat and then we are going to add a few tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. And then we are going to coat the bottom of our pan and you can see how nicely that coats the bottom when its already heated. Once you are able to start smelling the olive oil, we are going to add our peppers, now these are about two pounds of mixed peppers that I have got red, orange and yellow all together. You could also add green, you could add olive wine, whatever you like. You can see their skin is nice and shiny, it has no brushes and they are very firm. And this is what we want for this type of dish because we want them to really hold their integrity.

So we want the peppers to be as fresh as possible. This is not a recipe that you want to use if you have old peppers that are going bad. So I am going to go ahead and add our slices right into our hot oil. Now this mixture is known as peppernota in Italian and its a very common condiment in Southern Italy that they use, in the late summer when you have a lot of peppers in season because it is a dish that they would make to take advantage of all of those peppers. As you can see the colors look so beautiful.

But with vegetables colors are not only visually appealing but they are actually known to help strengthen our vision and our skin. So keep in mind that orange and yellow colored vegetable is very good to vision and very good for the skin. Thats okay if they splatter a little bit. If you are at home and you want to put a lid over them to let them cook, thats absolutely fine. We are going to cook for a few minutes on each side.

What I am going to do now is add in our freshly chopped garlic. And you can add anywhere from 2-5 cloves of freshly cut garlic. As we know garlic is very good for lowering our cholesterol and helping our bodies to fight infection. So if you like garlic, I would add as much as possible and we are also going to add in some kosher salt, we dont need a lot of salt in this recipe. Most of our flavors are really going to come from the peppers and salt and some of the garlic. And from our ingredient which is about a quarter cup of pitted green olives that we have just chopped up. Because the olives are so full of lime they have a little bit of salty flavor so you dont need too much extra salt when you are doing this.

So just add these in. This smells absolutely wonderful and this is something that you can make in large quantities and freeze so that later on when peppers arent in season you have it already on hand. You can keep it in your refrigerator for about a week. Its great for everything from a simple weeknight meal to entertaining, everybody is going to love this.

And now for the last thing I am going to increase the temperature to high. And I am going to add a little bit of our H.

T Traders balsamic vinegar, this is nice imported Italian balsamic vinegar that I got at Harris Teeter. I am just going to add a few tablespoons onto the top and this acidity is really going to help caramelize the peppers and it is really going to soak in and give them a nice little extra shot of flavor. So we have some fruitiness in there from the olives and the olive oil and then this concentrated grape flavor of the balsamic vinegar makes a really nice kind of sweet and sour accompaniment for our peppers.

So I am going to let these cook for about 5-10 minutes until they are nice and soft. And we are going to check on our Caprese Style Chicken Breasts and see how they are cooking and when we come back we will plate it up all together.

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