A couple of months ago, I thumbed through the recipe box my mother gave me before I was married. I don’t remember what I was looking for, but what I found was her recipe for Easy Lemon Chicken.
This wasn’t a recipe from my childhood, and I don’t know where my mother got it. As I recall, Easy Lemon Chicken became one of her go-to recipes sometime when I was a young adult. I think she gave me the recipe when my kids were small. Unlike the typed cards she gave me before I married, this card is handwritten, so I know it was not one of the original recipes she gave me.
I made Easy Lemon Chicken a few times, but it never became a favorite of mine to cook. Maybe the kids didn’t like it. Or maybe, despite the recipe’s title, I didn’t find it easy. It required too much attention—first browning the chicken and then simmering it. I couldn’t put it in a pot and leave it while I did something else.
Plus, at some point in those years, we got rid of our electric frying pan, and I didn’t like browning meat in our skillet—too much of a mess. So I put the recipe card behind the Poultry tab and passed it over in favor of other concoctions.
But when I pulled out the Easy Lemon Chicken card again this year, I decided to try it. I had all the ingredients on hand, or reasonable facsimiles thereof. Why not?
And it was good.
At this point in my life, unlike in my early married days, I have a good pan that is big enough for browning the meat without spatters and that also simmers evenly without burning. And I have an Instant Pot that cooks rice really well.
Here is the recipe (with my mother’s modifications and mine in parentheses):
EASY LEMON CHICKEN
1 lemon (or substitute bottled lemon juice and dried lemon peel)
2 chicken breasts, skinned and cut in half (thighs OK also)
1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp paprika
2 Tbsp margarine (or butter or olive oil)
2 Tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup chicken broth (or 1 chicken bouillon cube in 1/2 cup water)
1. Grate rind from lemon and set aside. Squeeze juice from lemon over chicken.
2. Mix flour and paprika. Coat chicken with mixture.
3. Brown coated chicken in margarine (or butter or oil) in skillet or electric frying pan.
4. Sprinkle chicken with reserved lemon rind, brown sugar, and salt. Add broth.
5. Reduce heat; cover and cook 35 minutes.
Good served with rice.
This recipe is harder than grilling chicken breasts outside. It’s also harder than throwing the chicken in a crockpot with some vegetables, wine, and seasoning. But it’s easy enough that I’ll make it again. When I have time.
What recipes have you rediscovered after several years?
