Salt and Sumac Chicken

Is that a weird name? I think it must be. But that's what this is. It's salty and it's citrusy from the sumac. And it's chicken. Basically how this happened is that in one of my classes, we have to do an "inquiry" which is basically an experiment. I decided to use chicken, mostly because I thought I'd like to eat chicken with wild rice and I wanted to use the wild rice up (see? That's me, right here, using up some food storage!). So basically, the rules for the experiment were that we had to use common household goods, do it on a high school kind of level, and do it at home, not in the lab. My experiment was to cook one chicken breast from a cold pan, and one from a hot pan to see if searing really "keeps in the juices." Of course, we all know the answer to that, but we're not doing original research or experimentation here. Just small stuff.

Anyway, I worked my homework into a recipe for y'all. And that should make you happy since it means I did something this week other than tell you about my food waste and shopping. So there we have it. If you think this will be too salty for you (and it will be, unless you really love salt), feel free to reduce the amount. It's a pretty strongly flavoured recipe, since I've got allergies right now that're eliminating my ability to taste much that isn't really intensely flavoured. So again, make any adjustments as you see fit, as per usual. Hope you enjoy!

1/2 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon sumac
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 chicken breasts (or tenders, if you're just one person)

Mix together the salt, sumac and oil to make a paste. Rub the paste all over your chicken, then stick it in the fridge to chill out while you're at work or school. Come home, and preheat a pan on the stove at medium high heat. Cook about 3-5 minutes per side, or until done. Serve with sauce (see below) and wild rice (or whatever rice you have on hand, though I boiled mine with a dried lime, a bay leaf and some salt) and maybe a makdous or two on the side. Serves 1-2.

Sauce:

1/2 cup white wine
1/2 tablespoon each: harissa, tomato paste, pomegranate molasses
1 teaspoon dried parsley

Deglaze pan with wine. Whisk in the other ingredients and boil down until thick. Pour over chicken and rice.

Comments

  1. cosmicaug7:48 PM

    So what's the answer? Sometimes we think we know and we don't.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Allie8:01 PM

    Oh! The answer is not, it's not true that one needs to sear meat before cooking. However, doing so will increase the flavour. But that wasn't part of the experiment.

    ReplyDelete

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