Mayonnaise Derangement Syndrome

Because life is absurd and ignorance is the new competence, I’m currently in first place in one of my two NCAA brackets. I hadn’t watched a game since last March when I filled out my bracket. I picked Arizona to win, and I had Kentucky in the final four because my dad told me that Dick Vitale said they would win. I didn’t even know who Zach Edey was. I listened to a half-serious Defector podcast in the shower on the morning the bracket was due, sent in some money and clicked around for two minutes.

Anyway, now I’m rich.

More good news: it is sort of springtime

I have an annual approach to personal fitness. I like to start getting fat just in time for Thanksgiving, and really pile in on through winter so I can get up to my maximum extreme fighting weight by the first day of Spring.

By Selection Sunday I will have accidentally caught sight of myself in a full-length mirror, Punxsutawney Phil style, leading to an attack of self-loathing and a sudden quest to lose twenty percent of my total mass. The timing is crucial, because it coincides with grilling season.

When I cool it on sugar and bread I tend to be less enormous as a mammal, so me and Maya usually grill a lot of meat and vegetables throughout the warmer months. On Friday night I dusted off the old Weber and was pleased to find that it still works. It was time for Mayonnaise Chicken and Peppers.

What’s that you say: if I’m trying to lose weight I shouldn’t cook anything with the word mayonnaise in the title? You might have a point, but hear me out.

Like most of the things I do, this marinade is a half-assed version of something Kenji Lopez Alt did. The mayo lubes the meat, makes the herbs stick, and enables good browning. I would proudly serve this to any of the several people I know who suffer from a mayonnaise aversion, because the finished product doesn’t look, smell, or taste anything like mayo, scout’s honor.

Here’s the approach, per two diners: get a pound of boneless chicken breasts or thighs, and three standard-sized bell peppers. I personally loathe green bell peppers and go for those supermarket bags with one red, one yellow, and one orange pepper. You do you, though.

A quick breast vs. thigh discussion: thighs are awesome and pretty much good to go from the jump, but breasts have their place in life too, and if they’re treated right I almost prefer them for this.

Pat the chicken dry with paper towels, then turn it into cutlets. Each breast is shaped like an axe-head, with one fat side and one thin side. Cut the breast in half horizontally to remove the skinny side, which is already perfect for our purposes. Then put the fat side on a cutting board and hold it in place under your palm while you carefully slice it in half through its equator with a good sharp knife. Now you have at least three roughly even chicken cutlets, depending how your the breasts were shaped.

Next: put the cutlets between two pieces of plastic wrap on your cutting board and smash them with a mallet or heavy pan until they’re all the same thickness. This will make them cook faster, and at the same rate.

Then: marinade. Lay all the chicken out in your biggest mixing bowl and hit it with a teaspoon or two of kosher salt per pound of meat, as well as whichever dried herbs and spices are currently appealing to you. You want at least one spicy thing (paprika, chile powder, cumin, sumac, black pepper) and one herby thing (Herbes de Provence, Za'atar, dried oregano, what have you). Take a teaspoon from each side of that and make it rain.

Then distract the mayo haters and add a big dollop of Hellman’s or Duke’s in the bowl. Mix everything up with your hands, so it’s spread evenly over the chicken, then sneak away for a quick Silkwood shower before you cover the bowl with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge for as long as you can afford to, up to overnight.

Next, peppers. Slice the stem sides off and stand each pepper up on your board, so you can carefully chop off the lobes. Toss out the seeds and ribs. Here’s a good tutorial. Keep the pieces large, because they’re easier to grill that way, and you can break them down to comfortable eating sizes later. Put them in another mixing bowl, cover them with olive oil, salt, and a little bit of balsamic vinegar.

Then just grill it all up real good. Get a lot of char on it all. You don’t need to be precious about technique here: flip early, flip often, keep going until you want to eat it. Everyone complains about chicken breasts going dry but that’s not going to be an issue here.

I had roasted some unnecessary brussel sprouts while all this other stuff was going on, so to serve I laid out the spouts on a platter, chopped the chicken and peppers into manageable strips, and served them on top. No leftovers.

We will do a variation of this every weeknight, swapping in skirt steaks, salmon or swordfish, pork chops, portobellos, corn cobs, asparagus, zucchini or halved peaches. Eventually we will note the tiniest hint of Autumn in the air, and I’ll make an emergency lasagna. The cycle begins anew.

Even more good news!

There’s now a third version of Vampire Empire, and it might be the best one yet.