The Only Link I Care About This Week
Bizarre. Touching. Funny. A little sad. But in a nice way.
The Only Recipe I Care About This Week
Just a lil summertime chicken breast, for your consideration.
Typically, I steer clear of boneless skinless chicken breast because I really love crispy chicken skin and have never once heard of a person who finds themselves in poor health because of their chicken skin intake alone, HOWEVER, of late, I’ve been warming up to BSCB. Especially in recipes like this where 1. You avoid potential dry chicken with a slow braise in lots of liquid and 2. Chicken skin wouldn’t be at it’s very crispiest anyway. This recipe would, however, still work with skin on chicken. It would also work with a white fish… which.. if you did use, I would recommend only searing on one side and majorly reducing the cook time. Once again, I tell you, friends of the internet, recipes are interpretive and most of the time, merely suggestions.
One Pan Tomato-y Artichokey Feta-y Chicken
By: Me
INGREDIENTS
1-2 boneless skinless chicken breasts from the very back of your freezer
1-2 Tbsp olive oil
3-4 garlic cloves
1 cup of chopped tomatoes (you can also swap for a can of crushed tomatoes, if that’s all you’ve got or it’s December and the tomatoes at the market are looking sad)
1 small red onion
1 can of artichoke hearts
1/3 cup of full fat feta. Would be good with goat cheese too, I suppose. Or parm? Sure!
1/2 tsp. red chili flakes
Lemon (optional)
Salt and Pepper obvi
INSTRUCTIONS
Heat an oven proof skillet over medium high heat with a tablespoon or two of olive oil. While that is heating, generously salt and pepper your chicken breasts. I made this with one chicken breast for lil ol me, but you could easily double the chicken in this recipe and have plenty of ‘sauce’ to go around. (I just don’t like reheating chicken… so rubbery… so I prefer making one portion at a time, if I can). Anyway, the olive oil should be pretty toasty by now, so slide your chicken breast(s) into the pan. If it makes a little searing sound, extra credit points. The goal here is to get a really good, golden brown sear on your chicken. This will take a few minutes! Probably about 5-6 minutes. Don’t rush the process, baby! We’ve got time.
While the chicken is cooking, amble over to your cutting board. We have chopping to do. Thinly slice your red onions and your garlic cloves. Roughly chop your tomatoes and artichoke hearts (I like keeping them pretty large for this recipe).
How’s your chicken looking? Like the photo above? Great. Flip her over. Not quite there yet? Give it another minute or two. Once the other side of the chicken is seared as well, remove from your pan and set aside on a plate.
Lower the heat to medium low and add the onions and garlic to the pan. Sautee for a few minutes with some salt, pepper and red chili flakes. We want the onions to look a little transparent, not get any color on them, but still have some integrity. This isn’t onion dip. Although, now I sort of wish it was. Once you’re there, add the tomatoes with as much liquid as you can salvage from the cutting board. As a matter of fact, the best kind of tomatoes here would be the kind that are a few days past their prime and getting nice and soft. With another pinch of salt and the heat lowered a bit more, bring everything to a simmer. Once you’ve gotten there, gently stir in the artichoke hearts. Once incorporated, pour in about a 1/2 cup of water to and stir. We’re looking for saucy here.
Pre-heat your broiler, please.
With the crispiest side up, nestle your chicken breast into the sauce, pouring in any of the juices that have accumulated. With the sauce gently simmering all around it, your cooking is now *braising.* In about 4-5 minutes, your chicken should be cooked all the way through and really beautifully infused with all of the flavors of your tomato sauce.
Generously sprinkle your entire pan with feta. Transfer the entire pan into the broiler and let her crisp for a few minutes. I’m always really afraid to assign time to broilers, because they range so vastly in heat, so I just would prefer if we agreed on setting a timer for 1 minute and then 1 minute and then 1 minute and so on until the feta is golden brown, like a perfect marshmellow on a s’more. Plz don’t burn. We’ve gotten this far.
Remove from the oven and let it all stand for a minute or two. This really does help the chicken and the sauce set up.
That’s all! I sliced the chicken up and spooned everything over a bowl of chickpeas, but you could eat it all on it’s own. Or with a bowl of grains. Or pasta. Or bread. No wrong answer.
**Realizing I would absolutely love capers with this. I guess add a tablespoon or so in when you add the artichokes.
Plus a little more…
Didn’t quite get my act together enough this week to finish the comfortable shoe round up that I teased on my IG, so I’ll have that for you next week.
In the meantime, I suggest you spend the 3 minutes that you were planning on using to read A Little More watching highlights from the (women’s) World Athletics Championships from this week. Bodies are so wild.