Lemon Butter Chicken

When I was younger I was totally the only person in my family who couldn't cook. I would sometime help my mom, but I sort of made a mess of things a lot.  Mostly I just wasn't paying attention to what I was doing. It didn't really matter though my mom was an awesome cook and I ate really well every day. But when I got to college that all changed. I eventually got sick of eating chicken finger sandwiches and philly cheesesteak wraps every day and decided I wanted to learn how to cook.  At this point I wasn't really concerned about health (except when I was psychotically dieting, eating under 1000 calories a day and making myself miserable) I just wanted things to taste good.

Eventually I got pretty good, but according to my mother, mike, and pretty much anyone else who cooked with me or ate my food I overly relied on butter to make things tasty. I totally did do that. And at that point in my life I thought that was bad for me.  Now I still sometimes rely on butter to make things good, but I know its not bad for me. Yay!

This lemon butter chicken is something I would have made in those old days of butter dependence. It tastes totally decadent, but its a snap to put together. 

Ingredients

4 chicken thighs
2 lemons, zested and juiced
4 cloves of garlic finely diced
3 tablespoons butter, use the best you can afford, its the dominate flavor in the dish so quality counts
salt and pepper to taste
optional garnish: scallions, parsley - basically anything green

1) Cut chicken thighs into 2 bite size pieces, about 4 pieces per thigh
2) Mix the juice and zest of 1 lemon with the garlic, salt and pepper to taste and then use to marinate the chicken for at least 4 hours, up to 24.
3) Heat 1 tablespoon of butter in a skillet over medium high heat, remove chicken from marinade and dry off.
4) Place chicken in skillet, don't touch for about 3-4 minutes until it is browned on one side.
5) Flip chicken to brown on other side, cook about 2-3 more minutes
6) Add remaining left over marinade, lemon juice, zest, and butter to pan. After butter melts, toss chicken and cook for another 2-3 minutes until the sauce thickens a bit and coats the chicken.
7) Serve right away with a vegetable of your choose (I chose blistered tomatoes.) Eat with no guilt over the obscene amount of butter or shame that you relied on its powers to make something amazing.

Blistered Tomatoes

The summer after 4th grade my parents took my sister and I on our first international trip.  We went to England, and of course being the type of person who thinks of each day based on what I ate, I remember the food we had pretty clearly. In particular the breakfasts, it was pretty similar at every B&B we stayed in, eggs, buttery toast, sausage, beans and warm tomatoes and mushrooms. I was always a pretty adventurous eater, but for some reason warm tomatoes seemed weird to me at the time and I didn't want to eat them. I didn't really connect them with tomato sauce - what do you want from me I was 10. 

But eventually I did try them, and they were amazing. Comforting and refreshing at the same time. Since then I've had a softness in my heart for slightly warmed tomatoes and when ever I eat them I am reminded of that trip to England -  not the boring walking tours, bus tours, museums, and history lessons (all of which I thoroughly enjoyed when I returned to the UK as an adult) but of the same satisfying breakfast we at every morning in B&B's around the country.

This week I decided to make warmed blistered grape tomatoes, not for breakfast but as a side for dinner.  They take about 3 minutes to make and are deliciously fresh tasting when made with the awesome tomatoes available right now.

Warm tomatoes . . . mmm.  Behind them you can see some lemon butter chicken peaking out.  I wasn't planning on sharing the chicken recipe with you when I made it, but it was so tasty and decadent that I feel I have to. Come back tomorrow and I'll have it posted.

Ingredients
1 pint grape tomatoes
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil (or other fat of your choice)
2-4 cloves of garlic, peeled and left whole
salt and pepper to taste

1) Heat olive oil over medium high heat until it starts to shimmer, about 1 minute
2) Add garlic cloves to oil and cook for about 30 seconds
3) Throw tomatoes into pan, step back - it might sputter. Now don't touch at all for about 1 minute - you want the skins to get nice and blistered.
4) Toss tomatoes around in pan and then let cook for another minute - this should allow your tomatoes to warm threw a bit without popping and becoming a saucy mess
5) Season with salt and pepper and serve imminently*

*i was writing "immediately", but spell check changed it to "imminently" which sounded foreboding and stupid in a way that I really liked, so I kept it :)