Almost Blackened Chinese Chicken

This Make Your Own Takeout installment made a fantastically quick and easy Saturday night supper.  It involved absolutely no planning (with the exception of defrosting the chicken), and honestly came together as I went along.  After work last Saturday, I threw together the marinade, added the chicken, and went for a nice long bike ride with my hubby.  When we returned, of course we were ravenous, and I was so glad that all I had to do was sautee the chicken, and throw together some quick sides.  Dinner was on the table in less than 20 minutes, candlelight, music, and all.  Combined with some quick-cooking brown rice and stir-fried veggies, neither of us missed our local Chinese joint one bit.

Ingredients

Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts

Garlic

Ginger Root

Soy Sauce

Hoisin Sauce

Paprika

Cayenne Pepper

Cinnamon

Lemon Juice

Kosher Salt

Freshly Ground Black Pepper

Cooking Spray

Process

Start by trimming and cleaning up your chicken.  Then you can prepare the marinade.  I love to marinate anything in zip-top storage bags, it makes for easy clean up and all around marination, but of course, you can use any bowl or dish.  Peel and finely mince several cloves of garlic and a good knob of fresh ginger root (the Microplane is excellent for this), and add it to your marinating receptacle of choice.

Now, add the soy sauce, hoisin, and some lemon juice (I’m not gonna lie, I usually use fresh, but I didn’t have any, and as I mentioned, this involved no planning, so I used bottled…frown on me if you like).  Then add several sprinkles of all of the seasonings.  I normally add a little more than I would use to season the meat, to the marinade (mental images help on this one).

Now, woosh it all around to combine.

Add the chicken, and give it another woosh.  Then set aside and allow to marinate for at least 20 minutes (if you’re using the bag, make sure to seal it), mine was in for about an hour and a half.

When you’re ready for dinner, lightly mist a skillet with cooking spray and allow to get very hot.  Add your chicken to the pan.

Now, don’t mess with them!  You want to let them caramelize (that is, allow the sugars from the marinade to brown on the chicken).  When you’ve achieved a nice dark brown, almost burned looking crust, you can flip them over.  And just believe me, those dark bits are awesome!

Don’t be scared!  Now allow the second side to get equally caramelized and the chicken to cook through.  If your chicken breasts are a little bit thicker, you may need to lower the fire so that they can cook through without the outside burning.

Conserve your money, save your time, and ENJOY!

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