I was in a hurry tonight and had some chicken breasts in the freezer, so I went to my ol’ trusty epicurious and did an “advanced search” for a main dish with chicken that was kid-friendly. This recipe from Gourmet magazine (January 1996 – yikes – an oldie!) looked good and said that it could … Continue reading “Chicken with Gravy, “Good Zucchini” and a Potato Pancake Repeat”
I was in a hurry tonight and had some chicken breasts in the freezer, so I went to my ol’ trusty epicurious and did an “advanced search” for a main dish with chicken that was kid-friendly. This recipe from Gourmet magazine (January 1996 – yikes – an oldie!) looked good and said that it could be prepared in 45 minutes or less.
I did modify it a bit (some good ones, some not so much)
– I used boneless, skinless breasts (3 fairly large ones), because that’s what I had on hand. I’m not wild about bone-in breasts with skin, unless they’re fried and I can pick them up to eat them. I think they’re too hard to eat with a knife and fork and it wouldn’t be possible to pick them up with the gravy on them, so I adapted.
– I doubled the amount of marinade/sauce ingredients, to make sure that I would have enough for the increased amount of chicken.
– I missed the part about patting the chicken dry, so my chicken went into the skillet, marinade and all. This caused a DEFINITE lemon flavor to the gravy, but we liked it. Not sure I’d do it that way again, but it was good.
– I did overcook the chicken just a bit, so it was a little tough, but I was paranoid that it wouldn’t cook through on a low simmer and that the gravy wouldn’t thicken, so I upped the heat a bit. A bone-in breast probably wouldn’t have been so fast to overcook.
– We sliced the breasts up for serving and then spooned the gravy over the top. We didn’t serve it over rice or pasta, but it would have been good that way (we may do that with the leftovers).
To go with it, I made these potato pancakes again (the kids LOVED these and have been begging to have them again) and this zucchini, which the kids like so much that they are now calling it “the good zucchini”.
The meal was good, but it was a bit of poor planning on my part. I don’t usually like to have more than 2 dishes that babysitting on the stove. If I can relegate one to the oven or rice cooker and set a timer on it, that’s my preference. I was pretty busy trying to saute zucchini and simmer chicken and fry potatoes all at the same time. My stove has an interchangeable grill (you can switch between the grill “module” and a two-burner “module”) on one side that I like to keep in place because I use it a lot, but it does mean that I usually only have two burners. It took some planning to pull this dinner off with that hindrance, though. I had to start the chicken on a burner (browning) and then prepare the roux/gravy and then I put the pan on the grill side to simmer while I cooked the potatoes and zucchini. It worked, but it took a little finagling. I’ll do anything I can to not have to change out my grill module (it’s not even that hard – I just LIKE my grill. It also has a griddle that can go on that side that we use for bacon, eggs, pancakes, grilled sandwiches, etc.).
