Not Quite a Blog

This is an amazing main dish. The orange glaze is bright, flavorful and not too sweet. Of course, you need to get good chicken, and I'll leave the intricacies of that up to you... Serve with a not-too-fruity sauvignon blanc and a simple side of corn, green beans or your favorite seasonal veggie.

(Serves one breast per person, so 3-4 servings)

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup flour (placed in a pie plate)
• 3-4 good chicken breasts with the skin on
• 2 tsp. vegetable oil (I like peanut in this, but any will work)
• 2-3 tbsp. onion or shallot
• 1.5 cups orange juice, plus a bit extra (fresh or not-from-concentrate)
• A bit more than 5 tbsp. of light corn syrup
• 3 tbsp. honey
• 1 tbsp. dijon mustard
• 1 tbsp. white vinegar
• red pepper flakes (if you want heat but not the texture, you can use a bit of cayenne... not too much!)

Directions

1. Here's a quick abstract for cooking this dish: First, we are going to lightly brown the chicken and then, while the chicken is cooking, assemble the sauce in a bowl. We then set the chicken aside and reduce the sauce to a light glaze. After that, we dip the chicken in the glaze and let cook in the oven until cooked through. We set the chicken aside again and then reduce the glaze until it tightens up into a light syrup (a glaze) and then drizzle the glaze over the chicken.

2. Begin by preheating your oven to 375°F. Being very careful with handling the raw chicken, place all the breasts on one plate and season both sides with salt and ground pepper. Roll each breast in the flour, pat excess off and place on new dry plate. Heat the peanut oil on medium heat in a large oven-safe skillet or frying pan until it shimmers. Place each breast skin-side down in the pan; they should be sizzling. Get your tongs out. We'll want to brown each side... which means that you don't want to disturb the breasts too much... I'd check them at about 7 minutes and see if they look lightly browned. You'll then want to flip the breast (so it is now skin side up) and cook for about half that amount of time. When done, remove them to one of your chicken plates (do not use anything that touches the raw chicken for anything else without a thorough cleaning in warm, soapy water).

3. While the chicken is browning, you'll want to start assembling the sauce. In a medium bowl, combine the OJ, corn syrup, honey, mustard, vinegar, red pepper, and a couple pinches of salt and pepper each. Whisk well so that the mustard and corn syrup break up. Cut up onion now (before chicken is done).

4. When chicken is browned and transfered to a plate, add onion/shallot to the pan and cook for a minute or two (we just want to heat it up a bit and soften it). Add the sauce from the previous step and turn the heat up to high. When it starts a rolling boil, reduce heat to maintain a vigorous simmer. We want to reduce this from a liquid to a very light syrup. The way you can tell it's done is to use a rubber spatula and, at a moderate speed, run it across the middle of the pan... if it is not done, you will not be able to see the bottom of the pan (the liquid will quickly fill the void). If it is done, the spatula will have a smallish trail behind it and you'll briefly be able to see the bottom of the pan.

5. Take each breast with your tongs and dip into the sauce (roll the breast to cover in sauce), while tilting the pan to pool the sauce on one side. After dipping each breast, place them skin down in pan. Place uncovered pan in oven. Bake for about 10 minutes, then flip each breast and bake for another 10 minutes. Using an instant read thermometer the breast should read an internal temperature of 160°F; take at least two readings from the thickest parts of each breast. Transfer to plate to cool a bit.

6. We now need to reduce the sauce even more to make a light syrup or glaze. Place pan on high heat and stir constantly. Reduce heat as needed; we don't want it to burn or overboil or whatever, but we want to keep it on its toes and lose a lot of water. When you can drag a spatula through the sauce and it leaves a substantial tail (the sauce is thick enough that it doesn't immediately fill the void left by the spatula), the sauce is done reducing to a glaze. To brighten up the sauce a bit, add 1-2 tbsp. of orange juice and whisk to combine. Drizzle glaze over each breast (since it's not a candy-like glaze, you can be liberal here with the glaze). Serve immediately.