Posted on: Wednesday, March 23, 2005
SEVEN OR LESS
Lemon-pepper chicken easy and full-flavored
By Sarah Fritschner
Louisville (Ky.) Courier-Journal
In the parlance of the contemporary cook, lemon-pepper might be rattled off as a single flavor shaken from a single jar. But they are not only two distinct flavors, they can make even the most average supermarket standards taste wonderful.
Although chicken breast halves are not something that often inspire us to great culinary heights, they are easy to cook and fairly nutritious and seem to please everybody.
With fresh lemon and freshly ground pepper, baked chicken gets a makeover that you just can't shake out of a jar.
The following recipe calls for bone-in chicken because it stays moister and tastes more savory than boned meat. Substitute skinless, boneless pieces if you like, but they generally need only 10 minutes of cooking (more if they are larger than 6 ounces).
If you don't have a pepper grinder, consider asking for one for your next gift occasion — freshly ground pepper tastes fabulous and different from ground pepper already in the can. But pepper from a can will work in this recipe.
LEMON-PEPPER CHICKEN
Heat oven to 500 degrees.
Put chicken into a large bowl. Cut lemons in half; squeeze juice over the chicken. Slice onion and add it to the bowl along with olive oil, paprika, thyme, and salt and pepper to taste.
Use your hands or tongs to turn the chicken over and over to coat it with seasonings (you might cover and refrigerate at this point for several hours).
Put the chicken, skin side up, on a shallow roasting pan large enough to hold the pieces in a single layer. Drizzle contents of bowl over chicken (including the onion). Tuck one of the lemon rinds under the rib bones of each chicken piece. Put chicken in the oven and reduce heat immediately to 375 degrees. Bake for 25 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through. Discard lemons and any onions that might have burned.
To serve a low-fat chicken dish, remove skin before serving and drizzle the chicken with 1 teaspoon of pan juices. To make it a richer dish, serve the chicken skin on and pour all of the pan juices over the pieces (don't scrape the pan, because the high heat in this recipe will likely cause a few of the drippings to burn and you won't want that flavor in the juice).
Serve with baked potatoes and roast carrots.
Serves four.
• Per serving: With skin — 270 calories, 12 grams fat, 34 grams protein, 6 grams carbohydrate, trace fiber, 660 milligrams sodium. Without skin — 240 calories, 7 grams fat.
