Gourmet Today: Grilled Chicken Palliards with Nectarine Chutney (p. 525)

I wanted to make a recipe from each of Gourmet Today's new chapters. But, since my gas grill is under the weather, the Grilled Dishes chapter presented a bit of a challenge. I chose this recipe because I knew that I could cook the chicken in the broiler. That, and it seemed like an excellent use for all of the nectarines from my CSA box.

First, I cut up some nectarines into one-inch pieces (no need to peel them), and I chopped a tomato (didn't peel that, either), and some garlic. I put the nectarines, tomatoes and garlic in a pot with some vinegar, brown sugar, curry powder, and salt. I simmered the chutney for about twenty minutes.

While the chutney bubbled away, I made the chicken palliards. I put each of the boneless, skinnless chicken breasts in between two sheets of plastic wrap. Normally, when I make palliards, I bang the heck out of them with a meat pounder. Very effective, but also very noisy. It just so happened that when I was cooking this, my nine-month-old son was asleep, and my wife would kill me if I woke him up with all the noise. What to do ... what to do? Ah-ha! I put a big, heavy frying pan on top of the wrapped chicken, and pressed with all my might. I didn't get it as thin as I could have with the pounder, but it worked reasonably well. I patted the chicken dry, brushed it with some olive oil and seasoned it with salt and pepper.

Now, if my gas grill weren't sick (It just won't get hot. I think that the gas gets are clogged or something.), I'd have put the chicken on the grill. But instead, I cooked them under the broiler. It worked just fine, but of course, there's really no substitute for grilling.

I served the chicken with the chutney (topped with some chopped fresh cliantro), along with some fresh grean beans and a potato dish from The Book that I'll blog about soon. The chicken was good, but the star was the chutney. It was sweet and sour and tangy with an excellent punch of Indian flavor and aroma. The cilantro on top was a nice bright, clean note that contrasted with the richer, spicier chutney.

Gourmet Today says that the start-to-finish time is 25 minutes. It took me a bit longer than that, but certainly less than an hour. This really is a delicious, and really do-able weeknight meal.

Date Cooked: September 6, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Pretty easy
Rating: A-