Good Mallets Make Good Chicken

I have a silicone pie protector and an avocado slicer. I have assorted graters for various kinds of cheeses and zests. I have a cake icer and even that bunny wine cork remover the Bank of America sent me for no apparent reason. But out of all the many utensils I own, my favorite is a rubber mallet.

I came upon the rubber mallet by a stroke of luck. Three years ago, when we moved into our house, we had plantation shutters installed on the windows and doors. They snap shut with this tongue and groove bracket thing in the window sill. They're pretty secure, but even so, when my boys run out the back door and slam it shut, that shutter pops wide open. And it's a pain to snap back. It takes more than a firm shove or pound with a fist. For a while I resorted to Chuck Norris round house kicks until Stephen saw me and fussed at me for getting shoe prints on the door.

So I requested a rubber mallet.

Soon after that, my sister in-law Kelley came home from the dollar store with a rubber mallet in hand. She said when Lawson (who always accompanies Kelley to the dollar store) saw it, he reported that I must have that mallet. So there it was.

While the mallet works well for snapping shutters closed, one must be careful when using it for that purpose. Lawson learned that lesson the hard way. One evening, while Stephen and I were on our walk, we returned home to find Lawson on the couch with a bloody lip and Davis, phone in hand, saying, "I've been trying to call y'all!"

Apparently, during the half hour we'd been roaming the neighborhood, Lawson slammed the back door shut and loosed the shutter from its bracket. So he used the rubber mallet to set the shutter right, forgetting that rubber bounces. So when he slammed the shutter with the mallet, its head bounced right back and whacked him in the mouth.

The lip stayed swollen for about two days. Lawson's stayed away from that mallet for about two years.

After that, the mallet lived in the laundry room drawer until I needed something to crush my Ritz Crackers for a casserole. Hello, mallet.

Now I use that mallet to crush all kinds of things. Crackers. Nuts. Hard candy. About a year ago, though, I found a recipe that calls for pounded chicken breast.

Cool!

Lemon parsley chicken is a Weight Watcher's recipe, only 4 points per serving. It's tasty too. We never have leftovers. But the most fun about it is pounding the meat with that mallet.

Here's how to make it:

Ingredients:
1 bunch fresh parsley
1 lemon
Salt & pepper to taste
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp butter

Instructions:
Finely chop the parsley. Grate the lemon rind. Mix the grated lemon rind with the chopped parsley. Set aside for a few minutes. Put the chicken breasts in a plastic bag (I use two plastic grocery bags--just in case one tears) and pound them with the rubber mallets until the breasts are about 1/4 to 1/3 inch thick. Pound those babies! Flatten 'em out! Then remove them from the plastic bag. Pounding chicken breasts makes them much wider. Sometimes I have to use my kitchen scissors and cut them in half. Salt and pepper the chicken to taste. Then, using a fork, apply some of the lemon parsley mixture to each breast, pressing it into the meat so that it sticks. Put olive oil and butter in a skillet and heat to medium high. Add chicken breasts, parsley side down. While they're cooking, add the parsley chicken mixture to the tops of the breasts, pressing the mixture into the meat so that it sticks. After about four to five minutes, turn the breasts over. Cook another five minutes or so.

I served my chicken with broccoli and roasted potatoes. This meal is a family favorite, and we were so eager to eat it, that I was halfway through dinner before I remembered my photo! Stephen's plate looked the least demolished, so that's what you see here.

Chalk it up to a healthy meal: Rubber mallet chicken, a low calorie dish and a great stress reliever. That's the best dollar Kelley ever spent.