[39] Honey-Mustard Glazed Chicken

Cover of No Red Meat by Brenda Shriver

I totally chose this recipe Tuesday during my meal planning for the week because it involved the grill, looked crazy simple, and we had all the ingredients on hand. I am not ashamed of making such a choice. I am, in fact, very pleased with that choice since we didn’t manage to go grocery shopping Tuesday night, as planned.

Our menu schedule is a bit off of most people’s two major days due to the CSA delivery we get Monday nights/Tuesday mornings. It’s my sense that most people who plan their menus for a week do the planning and shopping on one of two major days: the weekend day most convenient for them or the day the store circular sales start. In Chicago, the circulars arrive on Wednesday and sales start Thursday.

I don’t actually do much shopping in the stores that have weekly circulars. We do most of our shopping at farmers’ markets and Whole Foods, and supplement with places like Trader Joe’s and Dominick’s. On extremely rare occasions, we supplement with Jewel-Osco, but I am irritated beyond belief at the TVs beaming ads at me at every check-out and a couple other places across the store, so I avoid the place.

Honestly, we don’t tend to shop at Trader Joe’s much because there’s not one near by, and we don’t tend to shop at Dominick’s much because when we do shop there, I end up mostly buying food that’s not very good for me (think Cheetos, Cheez-its and Quaker Granola bars).

As for this recipe, it’s so simple. It’s also fairly tasty, and it’s grilled so it doesn’t heat up the house. Win!

h2. Ingredients

2 skinless chicken breasts, split (I just skinned the split breast Bill had purchased while I was gone. I only used one for the two of us, which is right.)
1/4 c brown mustard (I used whole grain dijon mustard, because that is what I had on hand.)

1/2 c honey

1 tsp curry powder (I used a generous teaspoon, since Bill feels our curry powder might be a bit dull.)

Glug of oil – I added this because I didn’t feel the consistency of the marinade was thin enough. I didn’t want thin, but this was very thick without the oil. This is not necessary if you follow the directions properly, most likely.

h2. Instructions

Mix together the mustard, honey, curry in a saucepan over low heat. Or, be like me, and completely miss the part where you heat the mixture and use your immersion blender to mix those together, because that’s a lot of fun and mixes really well. If you’re being like me, add some oil to thin out the mixture Put the chicken in a shallow baking dish, and pour the mixture over it. Marinate at least an hour in the fridge, then remove from marinade and grill. Reserve the marinade to glaze the chicken with (I strongly suggest giving it a 5 min hard boil while the chicken is grilling). Grill the chicken over hot coals for 30 – 40 minutes, brushing occasionally with the marinade.

h2. Cooking and Consumption Notes

h3. Cooking

Well, I already mentioned I misread the directions and forgot the step to heat the marinade. I suggest doing that, because then you won’t have to thin it out with oil. The oil maybe helped the chicken on the grill, but I doubt it. I suspect it was just extra calories. Given the point of this cookbook, and the fact that Bill and I are both trying to watch our weights, additional “useless” calories are right out.

We did not glaze the chicken with the marinade. Bill felt it would be unnecessary, and he really hates re-using marinade (though he agrees it’d be fine to him after about a 5 min hard boil).

The chicken cooked closer to the low end of the time. That was good, because we were hungry. That was bad because we threw on the corn too late to have them at the same time. So we had corn for dessert.

h3. Consumption

I can’t lie to you people, I find most chicken breast recipes like this boring.

The marinade was actually quite delicious, and the parts of the chicken that had come into contact with the marinade were quite good. However, as chicken breast is wont to do, the chicken dried out, and little of the marinade penetrated the meat.

Don’t de-bone the breast. That’s the only part of this chicken that was moist; the parts near the bone. So, while I ate my whole portion, the only parts that were actively good were the top that had touched the marinade and the bottom that was close to the big bones.

There’s got to be a way to make chicken breast better. Any suggestions?

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