Tanyaland (?) Chicken Recipe

A few months ago at one of our favorite Lima restaurants, Josh got a dish that was very un-Peruvian.  It was called Maryland Chicken, and he loved it.  The concept was simple, chicken, bacon, cream corn.  We saw it on a couple more menus here in the months that followed and Josh started bugging me to make it.  So, I did what I always do, I searched for it on Pinterest to find a base recipe.  Strangely enough, when I searched Maryland chicken, I got no help.  All I got was Maryland fried chicken.  I guess like Kentucky fried chicken?  (No disrespect to Maryland if you have some sort of rivalry with Kentucky regarding your fried chicken).  So I googled it and got no help once again.  All I got was a recipe from Jamie Oliver (who I love) for something that looked similar. The only problem was, everyone of the reviews said it was awful and terrible and curdled.  So I just decided to make it up myself from what I remembered of Josh's dish that first night we saw it.  What I came up with turned out really, really well.  So well that Josh thought I should name it after myself.  It was pretty funny, and I admit, it was very good.

*DISCLAIMER* I must admit, this recipe is fairly heavy on the calories.  Not the type of recipe I normally would promote as I really do try to have a healthy lifestyle and share that with others, but once in a while is okay right?

Tanya's Maryland Chicken

Ingredients

• 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 2 cups heavy cream or buttercream (I would prefer buttercream but I don't think we have it here)
• 2 tsp garlic powder
• 2tsp onion powder
• 4 tbsp vegetable oil (or any kind of oil you like to use to fry)
• 2 cups bread crumbs (I used whole Wheat)
• 8-10 slices of bacon
• 1 can of cream corn
• 1/4 white wine (probably not actually necessary, but delicious.  Pour yourself a glass while you are at it).
• mozza cheese (I used slices of queso freso but real mozzarella would be great)
• salt and pepper to taste
• toothpicks (optional)

Directions

Preheat the oven to around 350F (our ovens are in Celcius and it was about 200c) 

Put the cream, onion powder and garlic powder in a bowl and stir. Add the chicken into the marinade and leave for at least an hour.  I ended up leaving mine for about 26 hours and it turned out great, but very garlicky, which I love.  Save the leftover marinade.

Put the bread crumbs on a plate or a shallow dish.  Put the oil into a large pan heat it up.  In the meantime, take each piece of chicken and let them drip off into the marinade bowl.  Dredge in the bread crumbs very well.  Get them on nice and thick.  Place each piece of chicken into the pan and fry until just cooked.  DO NOT OVERCOOK.  Remove the chicken and place the chicken in a baking dish that will comfortably fit all of the pieces.  Drain the oil from the pan.  Place the bacon in the pan and cook until it is about 1/2 way done.  To the point where it is still easy to wrap it around the chicken.

When it is done, remove each piece (you may want to wipe off the grease and cool it off a bit). Then wrap 2 pieces around the chicken however you want and secure with the toothpicks.  I didn't have toothpicks so I just kind of laid it on top and it worked fine.  

Leave the bacon grease in the pan (Peruvian bacon is not as fatty as north american so if you feel you should pour some of it out then that is fine). Add the can of cream corn to the pan.   Take the leftover marinade and also add to the pan.  Add in the white wine and stir.  Add the salt and pepper after you have taken a test try.  Let simmer for about 10 mins.

Next lay the pieces of cheese on top of the bacon.  If you used toothpicks you will have push the cheese down over the them as well.  

When the corn mixture is finished, pour evenly over top of the chicken/bacon/cheese.  Place in the oven and bake for about 20 minutes.  After that I broiled it for between 5 and 10 mins to really melt the cheese and crisp things up.  Watch it closely though!

There you go, that is it!  Let it cool a bit, because it is very hot, and bacon grease and cheese really burn the roof of the mouth!  Enjoy!