Savory Chicken
It’s always hard on a Friday night to come up with something
easy for dinner, and this particular Friday night I didn’t even feel like
eating. But the other residents
here get a little testy when I don’t cook, so cook I did. This is what I came up with. Served with broccoli steamed in a bag
and baked potatoes, it wasn’t to
hard to handle after a long week.
Savory Chicken
-Enough boneless chicken for 4 servings. I used chicken tenders, because that is
what I had in the freezer. You could
use boneless breast or thighs, whole or cut in bite sized pieces.
Olive oil
-½ teaspoon dried savory
-½ teaspoon dried marjoram
-2 teaspoons dried chives
-a pinch of granulated garlic
-salt and pepper
-about ½ Chicken broth and a splash of lemon juice for deglazing
Mix the herbs together in a small bowl. Heat about 2 tablespoons olive oil in a
sauté pan.
Put the chicken in the hot pan and sprinkle with the mix of
herbs.
Cover pan. Cook
on medium-low heat until chicken is nearly done. The timing will depend on what kind of chicken you use.
Turn chicken and cook through with the lid off.
Put chicken aside to keep warm and deglaze the pan.
To deglaze a pan pour off most of the
fat in the pan There shouldn’t be too much with boneless chicken, but this is
the first step in deglazing a pan.
Turn the heat up to high. Add cold liquid to the hot pan—the liquid will
come up to boiling very quickly, bringing up the brown bits on the bottom of
the pan. For this particular
recipe I used about ½ cup chicken stock and a splash of lemon juice.
Using a spoon or spatula, scrape
up the fond as the liquid boils. Once all the browned bits are off the bottom
of the panturn down the heat .
You
can then “finish” the sauce with a little butter or you can thicken it as you
would for gravy.
I am sure a
proper chef would cringe at the thought of that, but I cook at home and we’re
trying to avoid butter!
Then return the chicken to the pan with the sauce
and make sure it is heated to serving temperature.
