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Sunday, April 7, 2013

Baked Chicken with Honey-Mustard Glaze - Gutsy Cooks Club



I guess that, after getting married, Monica was feeling like her life was no longer hectic enough, so she decided to re-invent the Gutsy Cooks Club.  This time the format is a little different--each cook will pick a cookbook of the month and pick a different recipe for each week.  Monica chose Lucinda Scala Quinn--new to me--who wrote Mad Hungry and Mad Hungry Cravings.

I served the chicken with couscous and haricots verts from Trader Joe's.


I have to say this was sort of a slapdash recipe.  One of the ingredients was "some fresh herbs (if you have them)," for example.  Well, even if I didn't have them, I could get them.  But if you've made this before, do you have any ideas about what might be especially apt?  I had basil, rosemary, and thyme, so I used them all, and they were fine, but I wouldn't have minded a hint.

More significantly, the recipe doesn't say what to do with the marinade.  My understanding is that the current thinking is that you shouldn't cook meat, especially, in the marinade.  But the last instruction in the recipe is to "save all those delicious, lemony, chicken juices that collected in the pan."  The only way that lemony juices are going to collect in the pan is if you pour the lemon marinade over the chicken while it's baking.  Well, I did it, and neither of us died (or even sickened), but still.


The other problem:  neither of us is a big fan of chicken thighs.  I didn't substitute breasts because 1) I wanted to try the recipe as is and 2) breasts would be more likely to dry out.



The honey-mustard-olive oil glaze gave the chicken pieces a nice brown crust.  Be very careful!  They went from barely browned to almost burned in a few seconds.  The glaze looked good.  But neither of us eats chicken skin, so it was pretty much wasted on us.

TASTE-O-METER:

Jim:  I'll give it a 5.  It's okay, but not great.  I don't particularly want to eat it again.  I didn't pick up the honey-mustard flavor, which might have made them better, but I didn't want to eat the skin.

Marie:  I agree with what Jim said, but I'd translate that to a 7, not a 5, because I think a 5 means "complete failure," and 7 means B-/C+.  I did eat a bite of the skin, and that did add another flavor dimension.  I might try a version with skinless, boneless chicken breasts, but that would really be an entirely different recipe.