Lemon Chicken

I found a recipe for this in this month’s Olive magazine, clipped it and added it to the pile of “Things To Cook Soon”. I’ve been at home today and asked Stephen earlier what he felt like eating for dinner; I listed this among various lamb related dishes and also sausage casserole. This was his favourite though so I went out earlier and bought what I needed. The recipe called for preserved lemons which I found but they were £7 and as we only needed one I thought it was a bit excessive, the recipe mentioned you could also use ordinary lemons so that’s what I did.

When it came to cooking the dish it seemed too simple so, feeling brave after a glass of wine, I decided to tinker. I browned the chicken and removed it from the pan, sauteed the onions and garlic, added the chicken back in, deglazed with a glass of wine, added some parley, capers and the aforementioned lemon and put the dish in the oven for 35 minutes. I then added the olives and cooked for a further 10 minutes. Then I removed the chicken, bubbled the sauce for a minute or so to thicken, added some extra parsley and served with cous-cous.

The actual recipe said just to put all the ingredients (minus the capers) into the dish and put it into the oven for 35 minutes. Then the olives went in for 10 minutes, the chicken came out and the sauce bubbled. I’m not sure if my way of doing things added anything extra but I’m pretty certain that my addition of capers was wine-fulled madness. Why add something tart and briney to a dish that already has olives and lemons in it?

Stephen ate it and said he enjoyed it, I’m not sure if he was just being polite though. The chicken was moist and tender (probably because I browned it first 🙂 ) but the rest of the dish was too sharp for me. Note to self: if you thought a recipe sounded good then the chances are it is good, feel free to tinker once you’ve tasted the dish but not before.