Friday 6 May 2011

Recipe - Lemon and Thyme Chicken Breast


This recipe is inspired by one of the dishes that Marco Pierre White cooked for me and some other lucky bloggers who was invited to a Knorr Masterclass the other day.

I'm waiting for some of the pictures and videos from the event so I'll describe it in more detail in a later post.

However, this is a recipe where I try to mimic the chicken dish that Marco prepared for us. The 'secret' to this is the paste you make with olive oil, Knorr stock cubes and spices and other seasoning. In this case there's lemon zest and thyme added to the paste.

As I said earlier, I will describe the day a bit more in detail in a later post but there was one tip that Marco gave us that directly impacts this recipe. The secret behind getting really crispy skin when you cook chicken and duck breasts is to start with a cold pan. Pop some olive oil into the pan, breast skin down and keep it on medium heat. This renders the fat in the skin and makes it crispy. One of many top tips he gave us during the day.

As you can see from the picture I still need some practise to get this right, but the skin was well crispy although it looks like I did fry it a tad bit too much. I was looking for supremes but could only find part boned breasts with skin on. The fact that the bone still was in there added to the cooking time.

Enough name-dropping, for now, let's head over to the recipe bit...

Ingredients (serves one)
1 chicken breast, skin on
1 - 2 Knorr stock cubes, any flavour goes really
Olive oil
A couple of sprigs of thyme
1 lemon

Method
Pre-heat the oven to 180c.

In a small bowl mix the stock cube(s) with some olive oil until a paste is formed. Add zest from the lemon to taste as well as some finely chopped thyme leaves - to taste. Add olive oil as and when needed to keep it as a paste.

Spread the paste on the skin of the chicken breast, as thick or thin as you wish. You can let this sit and marinate for up to 30 minutes.

Take a cold frying pan and add a good glug of olive oil, followed by the chicken breast - skin side down. Fire the stove up on a medium heat and cook until you got a nice golden colour and crispiness to the skin.

Flip the chicken breast and let it obtain a nice golden colour on the bottom side as well.

Turn off the heat on the stove, chuck some of the thyme sprigs into the pan and pop it into the oven.

Let it cook in the oven until done, about 8 - 10 minutes (or so) depending on the size of the breast. Half way through - add the juice from half the lemon. You can also flip the chicken breast again if you feel like it.

I served this with some boiled new potatoes and a couple of spoonfuls of the pan juices. If the pan juices are too strong, add a spoon or two of water to dilute.

Enjoy!

2 comments:

  1. Ooh, yum. Guess what's for dinner tomorrow night? Glad to see you back on the blogosphere :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Minna,

    Please let me know how it turns out and what you think about it.

    Also - many thanks for your kind words as to my return to blogging. ;)

    // Mike

    ReplyDelete

Please leave a comment. Positive or negative - all comments are welcome and useful. I do enjoy hearing what you think of my posts, what is good and what needs improving so please post away.

// Mike