Home Living Cooking Good food from fresh ingredients: Simple and delicious

Good food from fresh ingredients: Simple and delicious

In the kitchen this week, I’d like to focus on this Julia Child quote: “You don’t have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces just good food from fresh ingredients.”

Keeping it simple is something I always try to keep in mind when I’m in the kitchen. Why make things complicated?

Slaving away for hours isn’t always a necessity when it comes to cooking a delicious meal. Preparing fresh foods can be simple in such a way that all you are doing is highlighting the flavor complexities that already exist naturally.

Sometimes complex can be good, intriguing or even push boundaries when it comes to cooking. But isn’t the point of eating together or cooking for someone else to enjoy not only the food, but the company?

Keeping that simplicity in the kitchen allows for more time at the table to simply enjoy the simplicity of a simple meal. Is this beginning to sound too simple?

Okay, just stick with me on this. I can’t think of a better way to spend an evening in than with my husband, at the table, enjoying his company while we eat one of our favorite meals. The best part is, we can’t enjoy this meal anywhere except home! I don’t care what anybody says, a home cooked meal is the way to a man’s heart – sometimes I wonder if he stuck around just for the food.

Here’s the crazy part: the “favorite meal” I’m referring to? It’s a chicken cutlet sandwich. Like I said, simple! The only requirements: the same, favorite fixings, served on a flakey roll with thin-cut chicken cutlet.

We have yet to find any other chicken cutlet sandwich that compares. The combination of fresh and simple definitely puts this sandwich at the top of the charts. This recipe for one of my favorites is pretty simple, just like the meal itself.

Kayleigh’s Chicken Cutlet Sandwich

Yields: 4 Sandwiches

8 thin sliced chicken cutlets, breaded (use half italian bread crumbs, half panko bread crumbs for breading) fried until golden brown and cooked through
1 head of romaine lettuce
1 large ripe tomato
4 large flaky sandwich rolls
8 slices Pepper-jack cheese
mayonaise

Spread a thin layer of mayonnaise onto the inside of the flaky roll. Layer the ingredients starting with 2 thin chicken cutlets, 2 slices of cheese, 2 slices of tomato and a piece of lettuce. Top with a sprinkle of black pepper and salt to taste. Serve immediately.

Do you have a favorite dish that only hist the spot when cooked in your own kitchen?

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Kayleigh Van Vliet Baig
Kayleigh is a sous chef at the Meadow Club in Southampton. A Riverhead native, she is married and the mother of a daughter born in December 2016. Email Kayleigh