Man Food for I Heart Cooking Clubs: Chicken Schnitzel with Bacon and White Wine

This week's theme for I Heart Cooking Clubs is "Man Food". Nigella's recipe for Chicken Schnitzel with Bacon and White Wine might not sound manly, but it definitely is. The recipe begins by sauteeing up four slices of bacon until crisp. The bacon is removed and thin slices of chicken are cooked in the bacon fat. Once the chicken is cooked through, the bacon is crumbled and added back to the pan, and 1/3 cup of white wine is added to make a sauce. The bacony white wine sauce is poured over the chicken. The finished result is meat, cooked in meat juices, served with meat on the side. Does it get more manly than that?

My husband had to travel to North Carolina this week and wasn't home for the big "man feast". I went ahead and made the chicken schnitzel anyway, worried that I would end up eating it and that the kids wouldn't like it at all. You know how kids can be with eating. Mine seem to like things individually, but mix them together and you can bet they won't touch it.
My daughter wouldn't touch it, but my son loved it!! He kept asking for more and more. It ticked me that he was devouring this chicken. I guess even little two-year old boys love "man food" even if they eat it out of a little Winnie the Pooh bowl.

Chicken Schnitzel with Bacon and White Wine -Nigella Express by Nigella Lawson

Nigella says:

"A Chicken Schnitzel, or escalope, grilled plain is certainly fast fare, but it wouldn't make you skip to the dinner table. Bacon comes to the rescue here; nothing fancy, just sweet, salty ribbons courtesy of Oscar Mayer, which I always keep in the fridge for just such an eventuality."

1 teaspoon garlic-infused oil
4 strips bacon
4 (40z) chicken escalopes or boned and skinned breast halves
1/3 cup white wine (I used Marsala)

Put the garlic oil in a skillet and add the bacon. Fry till the bacon's crisp and the pan is full of bacony juices, remove the bacon to a piece of foil, wrap it, and set it aside for a moment. Fry the chicken for about 2 minutes a side, until there is no pinkness when you cut into a piece. Make sure the pan's hot so that the escalopes catch a little, turning beautifully bronze. Remove the chicken to a serving plate and quickly crumble in the bacon you've set aside, then pour the win in and let everything bubble up, and pour over the chicken pieces.

Notes/Results: Although this is not something that you can indulge in all the time, it is a quick and tasty dinner. I was worried that the chicken would be very greasy, but it wasn't. The white wine made a wonderful and glossy sauce for the chicken and the bacon. It sure was tasty to have a piece of chicken and a piece of bacon on the fork and dip it into the sauce. Nigella says that she likes to take the chicken leftovers, chop them up with a little cream and Parmesan to make a quick pasta sauce. I love the idea of using the leftovers in a creamy pasta dish, but my hips and thighs are telling me not to! This was a good solid dish, that I thought was tasty but that my son absolutely loved. I will be making it again.

Don't forget to head over to I Heart Cooking Clubs throughout the week to check out all the other "Man Food".