Clouseau in the Kitchen

For dinner yesterday, I set myself to making this Tomato Chicken Parmesan recipe. Once again my lack of kitchen experience found me out. You see, I didn't cook at all until a few years ago. In a way, I still don't cook, but I can usually follow recipes. Usually.

But there are times when a lack of careful reading and lack of experience catch me out. This particular brain cramp which I now propose to document has occurred before but not recently, so, sad to say, I hadn't absorbed my lesson.

You see, I don't have it firmly in my head, or didn't until now, how to apply batter (bread crumbs) to the chicken in the Parmesan recipe. So ... I mixed up the bread crumbs with the Parmesan ... and promptly broke an egg right into the mix. I realized my mistake right away and spent the next few minutes cursing trying to extricate said obstinate and recalcitrant egg from the mix. Fortunately, I did manage to get most of it out; unfortunately, a modicum of the bread crumb mix also insisted on exiting the dish.

I had understood that the recipe said to beat the egg, but hadn't realized that I wasn't to dump it right into the mix. So ... I tried again: beat the eggs — and made my next bad — for after beating the eggs, I also dumped them into the mix. Then, with great dedication and zeal, I proceeded to mix said eggs throughly into the bread crumbs.

After which it was time to apply the breading to the chicken. It was only then that the light went on: "You dummy, AC!!" For I knew right away, that I was supposed to have kept the egg and crumbs separate, dip the chicken in the egg, and then dip it into the crumbs. It was written this way in the recipe, but sometimes I have the tendency to not read carefully.

What to do? I broke two more eggs (that made five in total), dipped the chicken in and tried my best to get as much batter to adhere as possible. Actually it worked not too badly, and the meal turned out to be fairly tasty after all of my bumbling.

But now I have to figure out exactly what sauté means. In this case, I was to sauté the chicken for about twenty minutes before baking for the same length of time. I don't think I understand this sauté business because the crumbs got much browner than I would have liked them to.

So tell me ... how hot should should the stove element be in order to sauté?

BTW, despite all of my trials and tribs and Clouseau-like bumbling, this Tomato Chicken Parmesan recipe was actually quite tasty.