Chicken Picatta, but with Turkey

Last Saturday night we were in the mood for a little something different. Since we finished our cleanse on Friday (down 5 pounds yay!) and hadn't had any wheat products in 10 days, pasta was calling our names. I took a look at the recipe for chicken picatta that we got from our first cooking class at Mise En Place, we had all the ingredients except white wine and lemon juice (which I knew I could find at my parents house down the street) and thought it would go perfectly with pasta. We had chicken breasts and turkey breast cutlets, but since the turkey breast cutlets are smaller and thinner we used those instead of chicken. (Read: I'm lazy and wanted to skip the pounding the chicken step)

One of the healthy changes we've made over the past few years that we barely even notice is switching to whole wheat pasta. Now I'll be honest, I don't always like all types of whole wheat pasta (whole wheat penne is just not appealing to me), but we get whole wheat thin spaghetti and actually like it better than regular spaghetti or angel hair pasta.

I was really excited to try this recipe because it involved lightly breading the turkey like I've done in the past with Turkey Parmesan, but you add the extra step of coating the turkey in flour BEFORE you dip it in the egg and then the bread crumbs. I wanted to see if this extra step was worth it, did it really make a difference in the crust?

We weren't in a rush to eat so I poured a glass of wine and sat down to read through the recipe. When I first looked at it, it looked like it had a lot of ingredients. I've come to the realization that long ingredient lists completely overwhelm me. My definition of long is probably a little over dramatic, anything with more than 5-6 ingredients makes me think "UGH this will take FOREVER." This recipe has a few more that 5 ingredients but they're all things we normally keep around the house and once I took the time to read the recipe I realized, hey, this will only take like 30 minutes. If you actually know what your doing in the kitchen and don't take as many wine breaks as I do, you could probably make it even faster.

Turkey Picatta adapted from Mise En Place 

• 4 turkey breast cutlets (that's usually what comes in one package)
• Salt & pepper
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 tablespoon water
• 3/4 breadcrumbs
• olive oil
• 3 tablespoons butter, room temperature, divided (meaning in 1 tbsp. chunks)
• 1/3 cup lemon juice
• 1/2 cup dry white wine

Since we wanted pasta with this dish, the first thing I did was get a pot of water boiling - see how much I've learned?? It's all about timing! Then, I got the breading stations ready which involved a plate, a bowl, another plate and a baking sheet. First plate got flour, bowl got eggs & water, last plate got breadcrumbs, baking sheet got foil because I'm lazy and hate doing dishes.

One by one I got all 4 pieces of turkey through the stations. The big difference in adding the flour step was that it definitely made more of the egg adhere to the turkey which in turn made more of the breadcrumbs stick as well.

I set the oven to 400 and then started searing the turkey cutlets in a pan with olive oil. Somewhere around this time I also dropped in the pasta and refilled my wine glass :) I followed the recipe's instructions to sear each piece of turkey for about 2-3 minutes per side and was SO excited to flip them over to reveal a beautiful golden crust! Once they were done I put them on the baking sheet and popped them in the over for a bit. This kept them warm and probably helped the one thicker piece finish cooking while I got the pan sauce and pasta ready.

I have a history with pan sauces. Mainly that they never seem to thicken up, so I was a little wary of this one. Lemon juice, white wine, little butter in the pan. It took a little longer than the suggested 3-4 minutes but eventually the sauce reduced down and I added in the last bit of butter.

All we did to the pasta was add a little olive oil (so the noodles don't stick together) a couple spoonfuls of the lemon wine sauce and a fresh Parmesan. Tossed that together, top with turkey and more sauce and you've got yourself dinner:

The Verdict: I wanted to eat 6 plates of this stuff!! It was really simple, most of the ingredients we pretty much always have on hand (we keep a lot of chicken & turkey in the freezer), so we'll definitely be making this again. The extra flour step during the breading process also helped the breadcrumbs stay on while the turkey was cooking. If you've ever just used breadcrumbs, you know what I mean...no sad, soggy breadcrumbs left in the pan this time!

Tonight for dinner we are attempting turkey burgers and oven-baked french fries. Jess sent me a great recipe from her blog to try and it looks amazing! The only thing I know we're going to do is use fresh basil - my mom did that in burgers she made the other week and wow, it made a huge difference in the flavor.

What are you having for dinner this weekend? Anything fun?