Dinner tonight... Lemon Chicken with Olives and Jasmine Rice

Tonight's meal was a winner. I once again turned to a recipe from Real Simple's "All-Time Reader Favorites" story in the January issue (Sunday's Cedar-Plank Salmon and last night's Last-Minute Lasagna were also featured in this article): Lemon Chicken with Olives. And it was great! So flavorful and tasty, with a nice presentation -- definitely dinner-party worthy.


To prepare, you dip thin-sliced chicken cutlets in a mixture of flour, lemon rind and cumin, dusting off the excess, and fry in about a tablespoon of olive oil over medium-high heat for about 2-3 minutes, just long enough for the chicken to brown. Then you set the chicken aside, lower the heat to medium and saute a sliced shallot for a few minutes, until it softens and caramelizes. Then you add halved green olives, chopped parsley, white wine and fresh lemon juice to the skillet, bring that to a boil, put the chicken back in with the rest of the mix, lower the heat to a simmer, and let it all simmer for 4-6 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through. So simple!

I wasn't sure how I would feel about such a strong presence of olives, but I think that they were tempered nicely by the lemon and white wine sauce. I used chicken breasts that had been air-chilled and had no water added to them and I wonder if that made a difference, because they were so tender! I used half of a sweet onion because my grocery store was out of shallots. (Who would have expected a run on shallots at the Teeter?) And I paired it with jasmine rice, which always makes my kitchen smell lovely. Mr. Fritz said that the dish was a little tangy for him, but that he could handle it. This is good, because I will definitely want to make this again. Yum!