Recipe: Lemon-Rosemary chicken

[killing_rose]

~2 tablespoons olive oil
4 chicken breasts
1 cup chopped onion
Mushrooms (I used canned, lord knows how much; not many?)
~3 tablespoons garlic (um, ish? I think? THERE WAS A LOT OF MINCED GARLIC, OKAY?)
~1/2 teaspoon pink salt
1 cup chicken broth
Rosemary, um, tablespoon or so ground? Maybe more?
3 pinches sumac
~2 to 3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon (or so) cornstarch

Turn heat to medium high; let oil heat up. Drop chicken breasts and onion in to cook. Get chicken white on both sides; add in garlic and rosemary, saute for a minute or so and then add sumac, and lemon juice and then wait another minute and add in the broth and the mushrooms. (I would actually have added another 1/2 cup to a full cup of liquid, because I really liked the flavors and would have liked more broth/gravy left once I added the cornstarch.)

Turn to medium-low and cover for 15 minutes. Poke it occasionally.

If you are not a paranoid bitch, another five minutes at this point probably would be fine. I went for another 10, then diced the chicken, took some of the broth, blended it with cornstarch, blended it into the broth, and let it thicken as I added the chicken back.

We served this over slightly-sticky rice that had garlic and onion powder, a bit of lemon pepper seasoning, and some coconut milk in it.

Comments

[drgaellon]

By "pink salt", I assume you mean Hawaiian or Himalayan pink salt, which is just colored sodium chloride, and not Prague pink salt, which adds sodium nitrite and is used for curing bacon and other charcuterie.

[killing_rose]

I believe it's Hawaiian, yes. We have several different colors of sea salt in my house, and since I was originally writing this for house memory, I went with "pink" instead of, say, "red". (As each type of 'colored' sodium chloride gets its unique color and taste from the trace minerals it absorbs and/or its surroundings, we tend to be picky about which is used for what.)

[drgaellon]

Back in 2002, Cook's Illustrated tasted two different table salts (one iodized, one not), two different kosher salts and five different sea salts. The source made little different in the perception of flavor - they all tasted more-or-less the same in chicken broth, for instance. The crystal size was more important - sprinkled on meat at the table, the coarser crystals were perceived as better, while in baked goods, the finer salts were preferred (because of more even distribution). YMMV.

[katarik]

Some people in this house eat the salt straight, so we wind up picking up more flavor differences than, say, chicken broth likely cooked down for several hours. We also have straight table salt and Kosher salt -- low sodium is a problem for us, so we keep several varieties on hand.

However, you are certainly correct in the assumption that we did not use Prague pink salt.

[carolyn_claire]

Well, yum. I have no idea what pink salt is, but this sounds great.

[killing_rose]

I believe the one in our cabinet is a Himalayan salt that derives its color from the trace amounts of iron. We tend to use a variety of sea salts--red, black, and pink are the current array. I need to pick up grey again when I see it next.

And it's quite good!

[sid]

Mmm, great flavors! I've only made a very basic lemon-rosemary chicken, where the chicken is baked with a sprig of rosemary and a wheel of lemon on top. Very tasty, but of course it can get dry, so the additional ingredients here sound perfect. I just peeked online for a sumac substitute, and lemon pepper is listed, so I guess I'd use the 2 Tbsp lemon juice instead of 3 in that case. And it would tie in nicely with your rice, which also sounds delish!

[killing_rose]

This spun out of an Italian recipe that used several different ingredients that we don't tolerate well; that version didn't include sumac and did involve pan frying.

Lemon pepper would definitely work; I like the backtaste of the sumac in the recipe which enhances and lends complementary notes to just plain lemon juice, but lemon pepper's probably the best sub.

Let me know how it turns out!

[sid]

Okay, this is weird. I just discovered a small group of email notifications I had saved as 'Important'. I have no memory of doing that!

BUT, how perfect to rediscover this recipe -- I was given some sumac, and am always looking for ways to use it. :-)

And I recently used up the last of my kosher salt, and was thinking of trying something different. Pink it is!

And I put off grocery shopping today, so I can add these ingredients to my list tomorrow!

The planets must be in alignment or something, lol.

[killing_rose]

I am actually amused right now. That is the sort of thing any member of my household's done.

I am glad the planets have aligned correctly!

Let me know how it turns out!

[sid]

I made it tonight! No pink salt, sadly. I should have known I wouldn't be able to find that around here. And I don't eat mushrooms, so I left those out.

It came out very tasty! Tons of flavor from the lemon juice and sumac, with a wonderful rosemary backdrop. It was a lot of work, because my chicken breasts were HUGE. Dicing them up took forever, lol. But that means I have plenty of leftovers to play with. I'm thinking a little of it might be good over a salad with a lemon juice/olive oil dressing.

[killing_rose]

Yay! Yeah, something tells me that I probably used kitchen shears out of exhaustion and then didn't think that was a thing to note.

[highlyeccentric]

Finally got around to making this - and it was delicious! I served it with couscous made with chicken stock in the water, and steamed greens on the side. Perfect for a day when we were after simple flavours quickly prepared. :)

[killing_rose]

Awesome! I'm glad it worked out well!