Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Baby, don't be sad

The human breast causes great joy for so many. Nursing infants, Girls Gone Wild viewers, bra manufacturers, plastic surgeons. So, too, is the chicken breast. A lean source of protein, yes, but also a nearly-blank canvas for your culinary desires. You can pound it into a paillette; you can cut a pocket it in it and stuff it with other meats and/or cheese (or vegetables, if you must); you can poach it, broil it, grill it, bread and fry it; you can use it as a handy stand-in for push-up pads as long as you're not going anywhere terribly warm or buggy. And most of all, you can marinate the shit out of it.

That was the advised method for making Grilled Fusion Chicken here. The ingredient list for the marinade/sauce base was intriguing -- what with the Worcestershire sauce, lime juice, chipotle, and ginger, it sounded vaguely Asian, vaguely Mexican. Asican, I guess. I figured it'd be great or it'd be a disaster, but the peppy reviews on the website made me think it'd be great. So, I whipped up the marinade, pounded the breasts (heh) and let them soak while...

Actually that sounded way simpler than it was. I am as distractable as a toddler on meth and once I got past the first three ingredients I was halfway to dumping it in the dish when I spotted the limes on the counter. Oh right, limes. Mixed it up, dumped it on the breasts, and then thought, oh right, ginger. Oh right, fucking CHIPOTLE. I must have drained the dish and refilled it four goddamned times. I guess I was in a hurry to get to putting climbing roses up on the trellis Peter just installed.

45 thorny minutes later I headed back in to cook. Chopped up the broccoli and got it started roasting in the oven, and started water boiling to cook the pasta. Once all that was going, I cranked up the grill, slapped on the chicken, cooked the sauce, and we were ready to go.

The result was decidedly meh. The ginger and lime didn't really come through; they were way overpowered by the chipotle. But roasted broccoli and Trader Joe's lemon-pepper pappardelle dressed in a little olive oil are always welcome in my belly, so they made up for the chicken's meh-ness. Oh well, two out of three ain't bad.

2 comments:

  1. I don't normally eat those little trees but I think I could palate them roasted. Will have to give that a shot.

    ReplyDelete
  2. According to Peter there is a single best preparation of any given food (and thus no other preparation should be bothered with) -- and for broccoli, it's roasted.

    ReplyDelete