PERRYSBURG — Friendly Skillet Chicken Piccata is an Italian main course meal that Samantha Bytnar loves to share with friends.

“What’s more fun than eating food with friends, right?” Bytnar said.

Bytnar has been working on the recipe for several years, but really honed in on it after during the pandemic.

Bytnar’s husband, Justin, had his Loving Italy Bruschetta appetizer as a Cook’s Corner last month.

They fell in love with Italy on a trip there just before the shutdown. They’ve also been back for a three-week trip in October.

Bytnar got the bug for travel while an undergraduate at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, and cemented that wanderlust as a Peace Corps member in Burkina Faso, West Africa. She lived there for two and half years, teaching math, in French. She jokes that she really knew very little practical French before leaving, so it’s obvious to native speakers where she honed her skills in the language.

It is the country’s official language, but there are 70 languages spoken with Mòoré spoken by about 53% of the population, some of which she also understands now.

While constantly preparing for their next trip, Samantha is an engineer for Adient, an automotive seating manufacturer, and Justin is a Realtor with Danberry Realtors in Maumee.

Both of them volunteer for Habitat for Humanity.

They have a dog, Daphney, a young and very energetic Bernese mountain dog and small poodle combination.

Just like with her travels, Bytnar is fearless in trying out new variations on a recipe, or trying a new store for an alternative ingredient.

With this recipe, she will also have a plate at the table with extra lemon, parsley and capers, so guests can add to taste.

She also has an opinion about garlic and salt.

“Fresh garlic is best. I do the best I can chopping it,” Bytnar said. “The big tubs of garlic just don’t work. Coarse kosher salt works best. It’s slightly better than the sea salt.”

The Bytnars make their own pasta. It can be purchased pre-made, but they prefer to make it.

“I do homemade pasta for every pasta dish that we can have it with,” she said.

The original recipe Bytnar started with called for ghee, but she doesn’t use it, preferring olive oil. The arrowroot starch is also not essential, as any starch will work.

“I don’t use ghee. I don’t get it at the store, because I don’t use it for other things. I think that if there’s an ingredient that you aren’t going to make use of on a regular basis, substitute it with something else.”

While she uses the olive oil instead, she thinks that butter would also be fine.

“We try to be healthier. It seems to be more expensive than butter and is probably higher in cholesterol,” Bytnar added. “And capers. Use as many capers as you want. You can’t have too many capers. I also don’t drain or rinse the capers. I throw that extra caper juice in.”

They will also experiment. Beyond trying out new pasta shapes, they also like to push the envelope with ingredients. One example is their use of cuttlefish, or squid, ink. Samantha suggests that it be added and mixed in with the eggs, before adding the flour.

She gets cuttlefish at Churchill’s in Perrysburg, or Sofo Foods in Toledo.

The red pepper is also sourced locally. It’s purchased in a jar, with the pepper soaked in olive oil. It’s made at True Spice, in Perrysburg, an Indian grocery store.

“We also buy our rice there, in a size that’s like a mulch bag. They do really good stuff there,” Justin said. “It’s a good hidden spot.”

Friendly Skillet Chicken Piccata

Ingredients

2 pounds skinless, boneless chicken breast or cutlets

¼ cup arrowroot starch

3 gloves garlic

1 teaspoon coarse kosher salt

½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Ground red chili peppers in olive oil

2 tablespoons capers

1 lemon

1 tablespoon fresh parsley leaves

Red pepper flakes, to taste

Pasta

1 cup flour

1 cup fine ground semolina

½ teaspoon salt

3 eggs

Directions

Pound the chicken breasts. Even coat them in the starch of your choice with the seasoning (salt, pepper, chilis) but arrowroot is called for in her original recipe.

Heat the oil in a large skillet, over medium-high heat. Add breasts or cutlets and cook to a golden brown, probably 4 minutes.

Reduce heat and add garlic, more olive oil and the pasta water. Bytnar said that there’s never too much garlic. Use the leftover pasta water instead of chicken broth, which some recipes call for. Cook off the majority of liquid, but serve with the cooked garlic. Make sure to get all the little bits.

Season with as much lemon as needed.