Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner

Well, I did it. I entered my very first cooking contest.

In entering the recipe that I did I also took a big risk. Even though the rules of the contest didn’t stipulate that the recipe had to be something simple or easy to prepare, I felt no matter what it was necessary for my entry to best represent who I am in the kitchen.

In preparing my dish for this contest I drew some inspiration from my childhood, as well as from the king of Italian cuisine, Mario Batali. Growing up one of my favorite meals was braciole, which is thin slices of beef rolled up with a bread crumb and cheese filling that is then braised in tomato sauce. Since the contest is being sponsored by Perdue, I recreated my family favorite utilizing chicken as the main protein.

The big risk for me here was that this recipe takes a bit of work to prepare, which made editing all the footage we shot to under seven minutes an even bigger challenge. Needless to say this isn’t some thirty minute, five ingredient meal you can just toss together when you get home from work or before you head out to your kid’s baseball game.

Cooking isn’t hard if you don’t let it be and sometimes good food just takes time. Sure, we are all busy in our lives and my family is no exception. On any given weeknight I’ve been known to take short cuts and, occasionally, order take out. Still, the majority of the time I cook for my family because in the long run it is probably better for us and certainly cheaper.

As one of my favorite writers on the topic put it, America is being taught that they are too stupid to cook. We are just constantly bombarded by cooking shows, magazine articles and cookbooks with tips and tricks to make things simple because, as they would have us believe, it would be too difficult otherwise.

Win or lose, I decided to stick to my guns and prepare a meal that I felt would be appetizing and most representative of me. So, without further adieu, here is my video entry, the soon to be award winning Braciole di Pollo with Parmesan Herb Polenta and Roasted Tomato Puree.

Even though I’ve totally got this in the bag , you too can submit a video of you making your favorite chicken recipe using Perdue’s processed verified chicken by entering the aptly named Perdue Verifiably Good Video Contest. Entrants must be residents of North Carolina and the deadline for entries is March 19th. See their site for all official rules.

If you’d like the full recipe, then head on over to peaches en risotto to check it out.

Thanks to Luke Armour with Fleishman Hillard for giving me the heads up on the contest.