cookery note: balsamic glazed chicken with lime

[redbird]

cattitude has inspired me to make a note of this one.

Last night he was out, and my foot was swollen, so it was dinner for one with whatever happened to be in the house, and not too much time standing up. That ruled out complex or time-consuming preparation or cooking.

I cooked some basmati rice (and managed to oversalt it slightly, but not inedibly). Meanwhile, I sliced a shallot and heated a small frying pan (the larger ones were in the dishwasher). When the pan was hot, I added olive oil and sauteed the shallot pieces over a fairly high light. As part of the prep, I cut a lime in half.

After sauteing the shallots for a couple of minutes, I put a skinless, boneless chicken breast half in the pan. I cooked for a few minutes, until it was nice and brown, flipped it over, and repeated. When the chicken was close to done, I poured balsamic vinegar over it. A minute or so later, I turned it over again, so both sides could soak in the vinegary goodness.

The chicken had to cook a little longer to be properly done through. The shallots were overcooked to a ridiculous degree: if I do this again I'll take them out partway through, and maybe mix them in the rice when it's done. I took everything into the other room, squeezed lime juice over it all, and that was dinner. A vegetable would have been nice, but not practical. (One shallot is not a vegetable for this purpose.)

Comments

[ala-too.livejournal.com]

Balsamic vinegar is a good thing. I haven't tried it with lime. Often chicken with balsamic vinegar tastes better cold.

Interestingly, the recipe I have going this week is one which uses balsamic vinegar. It's a lovely pasta with eggplant sauce. A bit more complicated that the one you made but yummy.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

If you want a vegetable and you're cooking basmati rice in twice as much water, you can cook root vegetables in the pot with it and they flavour the rice slightly and come out overdone by normal standards but still yummy. I've done this with turnips and carrots. If you didn't want them overdone, you could put them in ten minutes after you started, but I am a lazy person and usually don't.