Recipe: lime honey soy chicken
(God I need to find my camera again. It feels so pictureless!)
First thing's first: I've decided that whenever I post a new recipe, I'll tweet it. So, if you want, you can follow me @Anneka_Neko, and see when I ramble about food! I might not follow back, just because I'm terrible at choosing what to follow and I'm having to clear my texts like every other day already, but I'll sure as hell appreciate it! Also, if anyone ends up finding me from Twitter, welcome! Feel free to ask me questions or give me ideas for recipes or fanfic or really whatever. I'm online a lot, so there are excellent odds I'll answer pretty quickly.
Anyways. This is essentially this recipe here with a few tweaks, but I wanted to post so I could explain things like side dishes and uses for leftovers.
For this recipe ideally you're going to need a grill, but apparently it works just as well in the oven. I imagine you could cook it in a pan too? But this is really my second time cooking chicken, so I'm not going to try and tell you how to pull that off. I imagine the internet would have opinions though. (I might come back and add on to this if I cook it in the oven or whatnot.)
The easy part is this: go get two boneless, skinless chicken breasts. Cut them in half-- like. uh. up the middle. Symmetry is your friend. Okay. You got those chicken breast halves? YOU ARE A ROCK STAR. Set them aside and feel accomplished. Also, remember-- DISINFECT. If something touches that raw chicken, you need to make sure you disinfect it.
Now it's time for the marinade/sauce/salad dressing (seriously)/whatever you feel like. This stuff is kind of delicious. Honestly, even if you can't cook the chicken, I'd suggest making this stuff to just put on things (some of which I'll list at the end, under "leftovers"). For what I'm going to call one "batch", and we're about to deviate from the linked recipe ever so slightly, you want to zest two limes. Remember zesting from those orange cinnamon vanilla pancakes? Same idea. Dump that zest into a bowl and add the juice from those limes (again, see the pancake recipe for juicing), and remember to pour that juice through a sieve on its way into that bowl to catch any pulp! You're looking for about a quarter cup of juice, but I don't see why you should stress out if it's a little off, so long as it's in that ballpark. I found two limes gave me exactly a quarter cup of juice. Now add a half cup of honey (I used this really nice light, clearish local wildflower honey I bought a few weeks ago), and a third of a cup of soy sauce. I used reduced sodium soy sauce, and it tasted goddamn delicious, but if you're into sodium feel free to use the regular kind.
Again, that's:
-2 limes (~1/4 cup of juice and all of the zest)
-1/2 cup honey
-1/3 cup soy sauce
A word on the honey. I'm a fan of different types of honey for different dishes, if it can be pulled off. If you don't much care for the differences, or if money or selection is an issue, then that's totally fine. You should probably just skip down to the next paragraph, and I think it'll still turn out amazing. On the other hand, if you're interested, I really would recommend wildflower, because it has a sort of lightness that I like. If you can't get that, I imagine orange blossom would be lovely. The honeys that I might not use in this recipe would be clover or eucalyptus, just because I find that both of those have a stronger, more distinct flavor that might be a little too out in front.
We good so far? Now just stir! I added a dash of cayenne, a few grinds of mixed peppercorns (black, white, green, and pink), and I would have added a bit of garlic powder if I didn't use it up the other day, but you don't have to add those. The key is that you should taste the basic sauce first before you decide what you want to add.
Remember those chicken breasts that you cut up like a goddamn winner? Stick 'em in a ziploc, glass pan, whatever. Now pour one batch of the sauce, modified according to your tastes, over the chicken. Seal the bag or add plastic wrap over the pan or whatever, and leave it in the fridge all goddamn day. If you can, it might be nice to flip the chicken over halfway through. If you, instead, spend the entire day sleeping (or I guess actually spend your day on useful things), don't worry-- they still turn out amazing.
Now's a good time to make another batch of the sauce (or a half batch if you'd prefer), for basting on the grill, use at the table, and use on other food later. You don't have to do this, but I really liked the results with the extra sauce. Remember, all that sauce you're using for the marinade is touching raw chicken, so it's all going down the drain once the chicken hits the grill.
Now is also an excellent time to think about sides. According to the original recipe's reviewers, potatoes are good. I imagine pasta or rice might also be nice. My family sliced up a couple red onions, a green bell pepper, and some squash, and coated them and some mushrooms with some olive oil. Then we threw them on a pan (one of those ones with the holes in it) on the grill, and added a bit of the sauce at the table. I'll be honest-- squash and mushrooms are just automatically out as Anne-foods. However, the onions and the pepper went really nicely with the chicken, so I'd call those winners, and my parents liked the squash and mushroom too.
Okay, so your sides are on the way to being ready at dinner time, you got your extra sauce if you made it, and your chicken's been marinating all day. Now's the easy(ish) part. Turn the grill on at medium heat (or uh. However that would be done in an oven. I should probably figure that out at some point.) and put the chicken on, remembering to not only pour the marinade down the sink, but also to disinfect the pan, sink, and anything else that touched the raw chicken or the marinade. Leave the chicken there for six or seven minutes, and baste the top surface right near the end. NOTE: remember not to get any raw chicken juice in your main dish of sauce, because you'll need to throw it out. Either pour it on from a spoon or use a little dish. Then flip your chicken over, baste the other side, and cook for six to seven minutes again.
This is the easiest part. Eat. I assume you're good on this. One of my favorite parts of this dish is that the honey gets a little caramelized and crunchy on the outside of the chicken in a few places, and I kind of wish I could just cook some of that crunchy nonsense as a snack! Also, the lime just adds all sorts of lovely freshness.
Now. Leftovers!
I plan on coming back and telling you how the chicken tastes after a night in the fridge, but I can already tell you that the lefotver sauce is a winner. Earlier I diced up a nice crispy red apple, a few sticks of celery, and a handful of pecans. I cracked some pepper over it, and poured in some of the sauce, and had one of the yummiest salads I've ever had. I'm also thinking about trying it with some eggs (not a far reach, since I already love soy sauce and honey with eggs), and also possibly using it on bread.
Now, I have a question. I noticed that whenever I post a recipe, I hear back with some variation "gee, this would be awesome if I had a proper kitchen!" So, what kitchen situations do people have? Are there any appliances that everyone would love recipes for? (Probably microwaves?)
Hope you can try this recipe, and remember that most of the credit should go to the lovely person who posted the original thing-- and even if you can't cook it, I hope you at least try the sauce. And no matter what, I hope you enjoyed me rambling about food. :D
<3
First thing's first: I've decided that whenever I post a new recipe, I'll tweet it. So, if you want, you can follow me @Anneka_Neko, and see when I ramble about food! I might not follow back, just because I'm terrible at choosing what to follow and I'm having to clear my texts like every other day already, but I'll sure as hell appreciate it! Also, if anyone ends up finding me from Twitter, welcome! Feel free to ask me questions or give me ideas for recipes or fanfic or really whatever. I'm online a lot, so there are excellent odds I'll answer pretty quickly.
Anyways. This is essentially this recipe here with a few tweaks, but I wanted to post so I could explain things like side dishes and uses for leftovers.
For this recipe ideally you're going to need a grill, but apparently it works just as well in the oven. I imagine you could cook it in a pan too? But this is really my second time cooking chicken, so I'm not going to try and tell you how to pull that off. I imagine the internet would have opinions though. (I might come back and add on to this if I cook it in the oven or whatnot.)
The easy part is this: go get two boneless, skinless chicken breasts. Cut them in half-- like. uh. up the middle. Symmetry is your friend. Okay. You got those chicken breast halves? YOU ARE A ROCK STAR. Set them aside and feel accomplished. Also, remember-- DISINFECT. If something touches that raw chicken, you need to make sure you disinfect it.
Now it's time for the marinade/sauce/salad dressing (seriously)/whatever you feel like. This stuff is kind of delicious. Honestly, even if you can't cook the chicken, I'd suggest making this stuff to just put on things (some of which I'll list at the end, under "leftovers"). For what I'm going to call one "batch", and we're about to deviate from the linked recipe ever so slightly, you want to zest two limes. Remember zesting from those orange cinnamon vanilla pancakes? Same idea. Dump that zest into a bowl and add the juice from those limes (again, see the pancake recipe for juicing), and remember to pour that juice through a sieve on its way into that bowl to catch any pulp! You're looking for about a quarter cup of juice, but I don't see why you should stress out if it's a little off, so long as it's in that ballpark. I found two limes gave me exactly a quarter cup of juice. Now add a half cup of honey (I used this really nice light, clearish local wildflower honey I bought a few weeks ago), and a third of a cup of soy sauce. I used reduced sodium soy sauce, and it tasted goddamn delicious, but if you're into sodium feel free to use the regular kind.
Again, that's:
-2 limes (~1/4 cup of juice and all of the zest)
-1/2 cup honey
-1/3 cup soy sauce
A word on the honey. I'm a fan of different types of honey for different dishes, if it can be pulled off. If you don't much care for the differences, or if money or selection is an issue, then that's totally fine. You should probably just skip down to the next paragraph, and I think it'll still turn out amazing. On the other hand, if you're interested, I really would recommend wildflower, because it has a sort of lightness that I like. If you can't get that, I imagine orange blossom would be lovely. The honeys that I might not use in this recipe would be clover or eucalyptus, just because I find that both of those have a stronger, more distinct flavor that might be a little too out in front.
We good so far? Now just stir! I added a dash of cayenne, a few grinds of mixed peppercorns (black, white, green, and pink), and I would have added a bit of garlic powder if I didn't use it up the other day, but you don't have to add those. The key is that you should taste the basic sauce first before you decide what you want to add.
Remember those chicken breasts that you cut up like a goddamn winner? Stick 'em in a ziploc, glass pan, whatever. Now pour one batch of the sauce, modified according to your tastes, over the chicken. Seal the bag or add plastic wrap over the pan or whatever, and leave it in the fridge all goddamn day. If you can, it might be nice to flip the chicken over halfway through. If you, instead, spend the entire day sleeping (or I guess actually spend your day on useful things), don't worry-- they still turn out amazing.
Now's a good time to make another batch of the sauce (or a half batch if you'd prefer), for basting on the grill, use at the table, and use on other food later. You don't have to do this, but I really liked the results with the extra sauce. Remember, all that sauce you're using for the marinade is touching raw chicken, so it's all going down the drain once the chicken hits the grill.
Now is also an excellent time to think about sides. According to the original recipe's reviewers, potatoes are good. I imagine pasta or rice might also be nice. My family sliced up a couple red onions, a green bell pepper, and some squash, and coated them and some mushrooms with some olive oil. Then we threw them on a pan (one of those ones with the holes in it) on the grill, and added a bit of the sauce at the table. I'll be honest-- squash and mushrooms are just automatically out as Anne-foods. However, the onions and the pepper went really nicely with the chicken, so I'd call those winners, and my parents liked the squash and mushroom too.
Okay, so your sides are on the way to being ready at dinner time, you got your extra sauce if you made it, and your chicken's been marinating all day. Now's the easy(ish) part. Turn the grill on at medium heat (or uh. However that would be done in an oven. I should probably figure that out at some point.) and put the chicken on, remembering to not only pour the marinade down the sink, but also to disinfect the pan, sink, and anything else that touched the raw chicken or the marinade. Leave the chicken there for six or seven minutes, and baste the top surface right near the end. NOTE: remember not to get any raw chicken juice in your main dish of sauce, because you'll need to throw it out. Either pour it on from a spoon or use a little dish. Then flip your chicken over, baste the other side, and cook for six to seven minutes again.
This is the easiest part. Eat. I assume you're good on this. One of my favorite parts of this dish is that the honey gets a little caramelized and crunchy on the outside of the chicken in a few places, and I kind of wish I could just cook some of that crunchy nonsense as a snack! Also, the lime just adds all sorts of lovely freshness.
Now. Leftovers!
I plan on coming back and telling you how the chicken tastes after a night in the fridge, but I can already tell you that the lefotver sauce is a winner. Earlier I diced up a nice crispy red apple, a few sticks of celery, and a handful of pecans. I cracked some pepper over it, and poured in some of the sauce, and had one of the yummiest salads I've ever had. I'm also thinking about trying it with some eggs (not a far reach, since I already love soy sauce and honey with eggs), and also possibly using it on bread.
Now, I have a question. I noticed that whenever I post a recipe, I hear back with some variation "gee, this would be awesome if I had a proper kitchen!" So, what kitchen situations do people have? Are there any appliances that everyone would love recipes for? (Probably microwaves?)
Hope you can try this recipe, and remember that most of the credit should go to the lovely person who posted the original thing-- and even if you can't cook it, I hope you at least try the sauce. And no matter what, I hope you enjoyed me rambling about food. :D
<3