Chicken with Lemon and Herbs

Honestly, if I were stranded on a desert island with only one cookbook, The Silver Palate Cookbook (1979) would be it. Well, that is assuming there’s plenty of food around for me to cook, right? So I guess I mean a luxury desert island of sorts… you get the idea. This book was a big hit in the early 80s, and I ALWAYS find copies at thrift stores, and they are universally oil-splattered and well-loved like mine is! I grew up cooking from this cook book, and this is where many of my all-time favorite recipes come from, and this chicken dish would be at the very top of that list.

This was my first experience with cooking in foil pouches (or, as the French like to say, en papillote, though that is often done in parchment paper rather than foil) but in a pinch, this also works in a small casserole with a tight-fitting lid. I’ve even made these packets up for cooking over a fire! The herbs, fat, even the citrus can all be adjusted to your taste (prefer orange and ginger to lemon and garlic? Fine! Substitute olive oil for butter? Fine!), and it just never fails. Kids will eat it (I mark my daughter’s pouch with a Sharpie and use no garlic in hers), and you can even make up the pouches in the morning, put them in the fridge till you get home, and just bake them in time for dinner: quick and fabulous.

The mind literally boggles when I try to estimate how many times I have made this dish. If I estimate about twice a month since I began cooking at age 13, that would be 24 times a year for – oh, several years. Shoot, my calculator hasn’t got enough space in its memory to figure that! Let’s just say, I’ve made this a lot, and you will too after you try it!

Chicken with Lemon and Herbs

1 cup chopped fresh mint, dill and parsley in about equal proportions, or to taste
2 cloves garlic, minced
6 boned chicken breasts, skinned and halved, about 4 ½ pounds altogether
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
2 lemons
4 Tbsp sweet butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Mix herbs and garlic together in small bowl. Flatten chicken breasts by pressing them against the work surface with the palm of your hand. Arrange breast pieces on foil and season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle herb and garlic mixture over chicken breasts. Slice lemons and arrange 2 or 3 slices over each breast. Dot with butter and seal the packets. Set on a baking sheet. Set packets in the middle of the oven and bake for 30 minutes. Transfer to serving plates and allow guests to open packets at table. 6 portions

Glazed Lemon Cake with Grant K Gibson

The second of two posts featuring my first-ever Guest Star, San Francisco Designer and Blogger (http://www.grantkgibson.blogspot.com/) Mr. Grant K Gibson!

Part Two: Dessert

All you have to say to me is Glazed Lemon Cake, and suddenly it’s not the cake but my eyes that are glazed, and I find need of a tissue to mop unsightly drool. Since Grant and I have a history of sharing many slices of cake together, it seemed only natural to bake one from a classic cook book that we both grew up with: The Silver Palate Cookbook (1979). And as we got down to the business of the actual baking (between giggle fits), we noticed that both our copies of the book were seriously well-loved: splattered with food stains AND fell naturally open to the page with this cake recipe on it!

Grant says he isn’t fond of baking, because he prefers not to measure and he likes to work “loosely” from recipes, while I, on the other hand, love the science and the precision of baking. So our team consisted of him winging it while I drank a cocktail and yelled at him to measure more carefully. Fortunately for us we weren’t making a soufflé, because I fear all the commotion and hilarity in the kitchen would have precluded the effective rising required for that project. This cake is way easier to bake than any soufflé, and probably about a million times yummier. If you love lemon, or even just SUGAR, this cake will delight you. I ate no less than THREE slices that very evening!



Glazed Lemon Cake

½ pound (2 sticks) sweet butter, softened
2 cups granulated sugar
3 eggs
3 cups unbleached, all purpose flour, sifted
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
1 cup buttermilk
2 tightly packed Tbsp grated lemon zest
2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
Lemon Icing (recipe follows)

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease a 10-inch tube pan.
2. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Bean in eggs, one at a time, blending well after each addition.
3. Sift together flour, baking soda and salt. Stir dry ingredients into egg mixture alternately with buttermilk, beginning and ending with dry ingredients. Add lemon zest and juice.
4. Pour batter into prepared tube pan. Set on the middle rack of the oven and bake for 1 hour and 5 minutes, or until cake pulls away from sides of pan and a tester inserted in the center comes out clean.
5. Cool cake in the pan, set on a rack, for 10 minutes. Remove cake from pan and spread on icing at once, while cake is still hot.

Lemon Icing

1 pound confectioners’ sugar
8 Tbsp (1 stick) sweet butter, softened
3 tightly packed Tbsp grated lemon zest
½ cup fresh lemon juice

Cream sugar and butter thoroughly. Mix in lemon zest and juice; spread on warm cake.