Lemon Chicken

Note: I was experimenting a bit with this recipe and came up with a change that made it so much better that I just had to go back and edit this post.

 

Look, it’s my favorite kind of meal: a quick weeknight dinner that can be made with little-to-no effort! Tonight on the menu we have Lemon Chicken. It only has five six ingredients!

First, one diced onion. Sautee it in some olive oil until it’s nice and golden, about 8-10 minutes. (And no, the oil doesn’t count as an ingredient. It’s a kitchen staple.)

You’ll want to be using a deep skillet with a lid, because once the onion is done you’re going to place one pound of boneless chicken pieces on top. These are thigh fillets, but you could do white meat instead, or a mix of both. All that matters is they’re boneless, because bone-in meat takes much longer to cook (the tradeoff being that it’s more moist with the bone still in, but that’s not necessary for this recipe.) Do be sure you’re using quality chicken meat that hasn’t been “injected with broth,” because that broth usually contains gluten.

Are you keeping count? Here comes ingredient number three: rosemary. I think it’s about a teaspoon, but I just sprinkle it on all willy-nilly like this. It’s hard to mess up rosemary, just make sure the coverage looks good and it will taste good too.

Now add a Tablespoon of water to the pan. I’m cheating and not counting this as an ingredient either, even though it does get a measuring spoon dirty.

Then close the lid and let it continue to cook over medium heat for about 15 minutes. It won’t look like there’s much liquid in the pan right now, but the chicken’s going to give off a lot as it cooks.

Meanwhile, get your lemon sauce ready. We start with two egg yolks. You can buy a little kitchen gadget that will separate your yolks for you if you want, or you can do it the old fashioned way, passing the yolk back and forth between the two shell halves while the white falls into the bowl below.

Just gently pour it over…

And let the white drip out behind it. Shouldn’t take more than a couple passes to get the yolk left by itself.

Then set the yolk aside in another bowl, and do the second egg the same way. If you have an immediate use for the egg whites, use them by all means, but don’t try to keep that stuff in the fridge for a long time or anything.

Then measure out 1/4 cup 2 Tablespoons lemon juice. I’m not a lemon juice snob, you can get it from the little yellow bottle too. I just happened to have real lemons available this day. One advantage of the bottle is it will never squirt your camera lens unexpectedly.

Thoroughly mix the lemon juice and the egg yolks. Also, mix in 1 Tablespoon of Cascadian Farm apricot jelly.

Once the chicken is cooked, lower the heat on the pan, and gently pour the sauce in, making sure to stir well and get everything evenly distributed among the chicken and onions. Cook for another minute or two until the sauce thickens, raising the heat a bit if necessary. But don’t go too hot, or the sauce will set like a custard.

Oh yeah. There aren’t gonna be any leftovers for this one, I promise. This is a good one to pair with yucky vegetables, because the sauce can be used on top of them too, and it does a pretty good job of getting them in the little mouths with minimal complaining.

Happy Eating!

Lemon Chicken

1 med onion
1 lb. boneless chicken pieces
1-2 teaspoons dried rosemary
1 TBS water
2 egg yolks
2 TBS lemon juice
1 TBS Cascadian Farm apricot jelly