Wednesday, September 09, 2009

Chicken Marbella

To honor the memory of Sheila Lukins, I prepared one of her most beloved recipes for dinner last weekend: Chicken Marbella.

The recipe can be found here. Of course I can never leave well enough alone and doctored it a bit. I had half a jar of marinated artichoke hearts in the fridge so added them, plus about half a box of crimini mushrooms, sliced. I also cooked it in a skillet on the stovetop rather than in the oven.

The dish had a wonderful sweet/savory flavor, but it was extremely oily. I had to pour the cooking liquid into a glass measuring cup and add a handful of ice cubes to de-grease it. If I make this again, I will skip the olive oil in the marinade AND remove the skin from the chicken.

Under the chicken is Mr Minx's outrageous saffron pilaf. Forget the chicken - the pilaf is good enough to make a fabulous meal on its own, probably because of the decadent amount of butter he uses. God it's good. And the bounty of tiny tomatoes from our garden added a bit of acid to the dish when marinated in a little red wine vinegar and olive oil. With a (couple of) glass(es) of chardonnay, this was a near-perfect meal.