Crispy chicken Greek salad & Greek honey cake.

Crispy lemony chicken. crunchy salad. sticky honey cake. Basically, the Mediterranean dinner party of my dreams, except I made it on a random Tuesday and basically ate it standing over the counter. The chicken is golden and super crispy with a sourdough parm crust. The salad is punchy and fresh with dill, feta, and a lemony dressing. and the cake? warm, soft, not too sweet, and soaked in honey syrup.

Crispy Chicken with Mediterranean Salad

Ingredients:

Cake:
4 chicken breasts
1½ cups sourdough breadcrumbs
½ cup parmesan
Spices: paprika, garlic powder, oregano, mustard powder, turmeric, pepper, salt
½ cup flour
3 eggs + zest of 1 lemon
Olive oil for frying

Salad:
Spring greens or romaine
Cherry tomatoes, cucumber, pepperoncini, kalamata olives, feta, red onion

Dressing:
3 tbsp lemon juice, 1 tbsp red wine vinegar, 1 tbsp honey
1 tsp fresh dill, 2 garlic cloves, ½ cup olive oil, salt + pepper

Instructions:
1. Pound chicken thin. Mix breadcrumbs, parmesan, and all spices (save 1 tsp salt for the egg mix). Set up your dredging bowls: flour, eggs + lemon zest + salt, and spiced breadcrumbs.
2. Dredge chicken in flour, dip in eggs, then coat with breadcrumbs.
3. Pan-fry in olive oil over medium heat, 3–4 mins per side, until golden and crispy. Let rest on a rack or towel.
4. Whisk dressing. Toss greens with dressing + a pinch of salt, then top with chopped veggies, feta, and sliced chicken.

Olive Oil Greek Honey Cake

Ingredients:
1 cup flour
1½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp salt
Zest of 1 orange
1 cup sugar
¾ cup olive oil
3 eggs
¼ cup milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup chopped walnuts or pistachios

Syrup:
½ cup honey
½ cup water
1 tbsp orange or lemon juice
optional: splash of orange blossom water or brandy

To serve:
Greek yogurt or mascarpone, extra nuts, flaky salt, drizzle of honey

Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 350°F (or 325°F convection). Grease + line a 9” cake pan. Whisk dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, orange zest) in one bowl.
2. In another bowl, whisk sugar, olive oil, eggs, milk, and vanilla. Fold in dry mix, then stir in chopped nuts.
3. Pour into pan and bake 35–40 mins until golden + toothpick comes out clean.
4. Simmer honey, water, citrus juice (and optional extras) for 5–7 mins. Poke warm cake, pour syrup over, and let soak 15+ mins. Serve with yogurt, honey, and a pinch of flaky salt.

Welcome back. I’m making another meal today. I’m going to make dessert and a whole dinner. So, you guys are in for a treat. This meal is what made me realize that I don’t like going out to eat in the place I live because I can cook so much better at home. And that is such a freeing feeling. Let’s get into what we’re actually going to make. This is a Greek inspired meal. I’m going to start with a Greek honey olive oil cake. Then, we’re going to make a crispy green Greek salad with crispy fried chicken on top. kind of like a chicken millise, but I made it Greek style. So, that’s what we’re doing. Yeah. And then we’re going to put the chicken on top of the salad, and it’s going to be super yummy. I have a few tricks for the salad, so you’re going to learn that. And we’re just going to go on a journey together. We’re going to go on a cooking journey. Okay. So, I have my mis and paws right here. I did this before I started the video because I don’t want the baking to be chaotic. When you’re measuring stuff and mixing stuff all at the same time, baking becomes so chaotic and not fun. So, it’s all measured out for me and it’s gonna be so fun. So, we’re going to cream our oil and sugar. I got my sugar. And then one of the most important parts of this recipe is choosing a good olive oil. So, I always go for California olive ranch. 3/4 cup of the olive oil. to put it into our sugar. I got my handy dandy KitchenAid that my mom generously hand me down to me when I moved. So, let’s get this going. That’s well mixed. Now, we’re going to add in our three eggs. Let’s see if I can crack it with one hand without getting a shell in. See, I know what I’m doing. That’s what $10,000 worth of culinary school paid for. Uh-oh, there’s an egg. There’s a shell. We got a shell. So, our eggs are in the bowl. We’re going to blend one more time, just real quick. Not blend, mix. Same. I don’t know. Same memory. My mixer is kind of going through its last days, but it’s fine. I really put this mixer to work when I moved home with my parents because I was just fresh out of culinary school and I wanted to bake tons of bread and bagels and all that kind of stuff and that will take a toll on your mixer. Now I’m going to do some vanilla bean paste. I’m using the last bit of this Trader Joe’s vanilla bean paste. Now we’re going to blend one more time. Mix. Why do I keep saying blend? Do the zest of one orange. I love using a microplane to zest things. It’s just easier. See? So easy. You want to make sure you don’t like get the white stuff though. Just do the out the very outside of the orange because the white rind part is super bitter. And now we’re going to add our dry ingredients. So I got our flour. See, isn’t it nice that I had everything prepped out? Don’t have to measure it. I’m telling you, such a hack. Our baking powder, salt, and then I have some cinnamon. I love this spice brand. It’s Oaktown Spice Shop, and their spices are awesome. They’re super fresh. Half teaspoon of Vietnamese cinnamon. Now, we’re going to mix. Now, I’m going to add some chopped walnuts. This part is totally optional. I think the cake the cake is pretty sweet. So, I think the nuts kind of mild it out a little bit. You can use pistachios. You can use walnuts. I probably only use those two types of nuts because I think they pair it the best, but or don’t use any nuts at all if they kill you if you’re allergic to them. Nut allergies are real, you guys. Walnuts in the bowl. I have my handy dandy cake pan. I’m going to spray it with some avocado oil spray. Uh-oh, I’m out. Thankfully, Costco sells these avocado oil sprays in two packs, so I have a spare. Greased pan. I got my parchment paper. I didn’t cut this out. I bought these pre-cut out. I always have these on hand, just like the parchment paper in my last video. So, stick it in the center evenly. Pour the batter into the pan. Taste test with the batter. You always got to taste it. Tastes so good. This is going to go into the oven at 350 for 40 minutes. 35 to 40 minutes. So, let’s go. Be safe, little cake. Now, we’re going to set a timer. Remember to set a timer. Hey, Siri. Set a timer for 35 minutes. 35 minutes starting now. Time to make the syrup for the cake. After the cake is cooked, we’re going to poke some holes in it and then pour this syrup over. Syrup is really easy. Half a cup of water. Then half a cup of honey. Can you see my muscles? My huge biceps. Half a cup of honey. A tablespoon of lemon juice. We’re going to bring this to a simmer and let it simmer for 5 minutes. So, this has been simmering for 5 minutes. Looks great. Now I’m just going to transfer it to a liquid measuring cup so it can cool down. This is going to cool down and then right when the cake comes out of the oven, we’re going to poke holes into the cake and then pour this directly over top. The cake is still cooking, we’re going to set this off to the side and we’re going to continue to cook the rest of dinner. It’s time to make our salad dressing. This is my specialty. I love making salad dressings. We’re going to do a4 cup of olive oil, 14 cup of red wine vinegar, juice a lemon. This is my handy dandy fluer. This is way better than a traditional lemon juicer because look how flat and compact it is. It fits so well into utensil drawers. It’s not bulky. It honestly would fit probably half an orange in here, too. It’s pretty big, so you can use this for other other fruits, too. We’re going to juice our lemon. We’re going to grate some garlic, honey, some kosher salt, and pepper. M. Actually doesn’t look that good right now, but taste test. Honestly, I can’t believe I got that first try. That tastes great. Now, we’re going to put the lid on it and I’m going to stick it in the fridge and it will naturally emulsify. Let’s see how the cake is. Let’s see if it needs more time. Perfect. Okay, so let’s take it out. Just going to use a knife to stab into the cake. Just a bunch of holes. Now, time for our syrup. Our syrup that we made. I don’t think I’ll use all of it, but we’ll see. So, let’s gently pour over the cake. I’m going to stop there. That looks great. I’m going to let this cool before I transfer it to my cake stand. So, it’s going to just sit here and look beautiful. The secret to a perfect crispy salad is your lettuce. The way you wash it. So, I’m going to use a butter lettuce and a romaine lettuce. And I’m not going to eat for a couple of hours. I’m preparing the lettuce now. I’m going to take it apart, wash it, salad spin it, and then stick it in the fridge until right before I’m about to eat. And then I’m going to take it out, dress it, and it’s super crispy and crunchy. We rinsed off our lettuce. Now, we’re going to salad spin it. I love this thing. Everyone needs a salad spinner if you like salad spinners. Put it out on a towel and just dab it off with the towel because the salad spinner doesn’t get all the water off unfortunately. Into my big salad bowl it goes. Now I’m going to put this in the fridge while I cut up the other lettuce. So I’m using two different types of lettuce. I’m doing butter and romaine because they’re the crunchiest and the best lettucees in my opinion. I’m going to chop this up. I cut all of my chicken breasts in half and now I’m going to thin them out by hitting them with this pot. You can use a meat tenderizer, but I don’t have one. So, if you don’t have one either, just use a pot. This is just plastic wrap so the pot doesn’t get all nasty. Yeah, you just want them like a/4 of an inch thick. Like so. Now, I’m going to make the breading for the chicken. So, I got some Parmesan cheese that I grated earlier. And then I made homemade sourdough bread crumbs. Add this to the cheese mixture. Then I have my spices. And I’m going to crack the eggs. I’m going to start with our flour mixture. Going to go to our egg mixture, then to our bread crumb mixture. There you have it. We’re going to do that a lot more times. Okay, the cake is totally cooled. So, now I’m going to flip it onto the cake stand. I love how everyone’s watching this part. Okay. Yay. So awesome. Okay, now we peel off the parchment paper. Going to top it with the last little bit of our syrup that we made. Put some flaky sea salt on it because it is pretty sweet. This will just help balance out the sweetness. This is my favorite way to make whipped cream. Heavy whipping cream. Some creme fresh. This gives the whipped cream a tangy, richer flavor. Also, if you don’t want to spend the money on creme fresh cuz it can be kind of pricey, you can use yogurt. That’s always a great alternative. Some whole milk yogurt, but we’re going to use creme fresh. Some sugar and vanilla. Whip it up until it looks like whipped cream. It’s whipped cream texture. I don’t know. Okay, let’s start frying. I’m going to fry my chicken in avocado oil. You can do grape seed oil. You can do vegetable oil, but this is what I have. So, oil’s hot. Now, it’s time to start frying our chicken. I’m going to just start with one. Let me see what happens. To know when it’s done, you want the chicken to be 160°. That’s the internal cooking temperature for chicken. If you don’t have gloves, doesn’t matter. You can just use your hands. Just wash them. But I have some cuts on my hands, so I don’t want to get the dressing on my cuts. I have my lettuce, my crispy lettuce. Now I’m going to add our olives. The best tomatoes, flavor bomb tomatoes, cucumber, sliced baby cucumber, red onion, the dressing. Mix it up. Just going to add a little bit more vinegar and salt. Now I have my fancy bowl cuz we’re not going to eat out of the lame metal bowl. The key with making salads pretty is you want to stack them high. Then I got some fancy feta cheese. Pepperinis, dill. I think this makes it look pretty. Chicken is done. Salad’s done. Now let’s just cut up the chicken to little pieces. Let’s taste test it to make sure it’s cooked all the way through. Our finished product. It’s so pretty. Okay, taste test. M. So good. Time to cut into our awesome Greek honey cake. It’s not my best piece, but you know, you get the juice. Then we got our creme fresh whipped cream. This is probably one of my favorite cakes. It’s so easy, too. I’m going to have like five pieces.