Wednesday, March 01, 2006

30-Minute Meal?

FoodTV's Rachael Ray seems to have cornered the 30 minute meals TV crowd. But she doesn't have a monopoly on the art of preparing good food in a short time frame.

Gourmet magazine has a section in their magazine called 'Quick Kitchen'. The February issue offers a sautée/grilled chicken breast ala Morocco with a lemon couscous. The recipe is easy to do and the results are very good.

A couple of caveats: the couscous calls for oil-cured black olives. Did not have oil cured so I used the Kalamata olives I had in stock. Also, use imported black olives as they have a much better flavor than any domestic varieties. I use a Micro-Plane to zest the lemon. If you do a Google on the name, you will find a bunch of places to buy. They come in many sizes of zesting capabilities. I use the fine.

The recipe says to pound the chicken breasts to ¼" thickness. ..that's a bit thin. Anywhere from ¼" to ½", closer to ½" will give better results. Sauté/grill the breasts as indicated on both sides. Then cover them off heat for a couple of minutes to complete the cooking process.

The cumin and paprika in oil brushed onto the breasts before cooking, along with good technique in grilling, results in juicy morsels of bird. The lemon in the sauce for the chicken complements the lemon couscous.

Give it a try and let me know.

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