Tuscan Lemon Chicken

I've been a long time fan of the Barefoot Contessa, Ina Garten. I love watching her show because she makes everything look so elegant and easy but I guess that's what The Food Network is for. So when I was spending a Saturday morning shopping at Target I passed by the book section and who did I see but Ina smiling at me. She was looking at me as if she were calling my name and who can resist Ina and her good olive oil. Obviously, I'm not a trained Chef so I don't know what the hell good olive oil is so clearly I needed Ina to show me the way. With Ina in hand, I headed for the checkout. About 15 minutes later I was at home flipping through the cookbook.

Now I think is the appropriate time for an honest review of the Barefoot Contessa's cookbook Back To Basics. I'm a very visual person and I typically pick recipes by the picture so Back To Basics was right up my alley. Each recipe has a picture of the finished product so this immediately made me want to cook everything is the cookbook. The majority of the recipes seem to be fairly straight forward and easy to follow but have a boatload of ingredients. Her Beef Stew has 17 ingredients. That must be one fabulous Beef Stew.

I took the lazy way out and picked a recipe with only 9 ingredients. Oh, and it looked great. Once I started putting it together to marinate, everything was fragrant I wanted to eat the raw chicken. Given the risk of salmonella, I decided to just let it marinate and eat it after it's cooked. I'm so glad I waited until it's cooked because holy mackerel it was good. I always figured Ina was a good chef but this just confirmed it.

Ingredients:
1 (3 pound) chicken, flatted
Kosher salt
1/3 Cup olive oil
2 tsp grated lemon zest (approximately 2 lemons)
1/3 Cup lemon juice, freshly squeezed
1 Tbsp minced garlic (approximately 3 cloves)
1 Tbsp rosemary, fresh and minced
ground black pepper
1 lemon, halved



Directions:

Sprinkle the chicken with 1 teaspoon of salt on each side.

Combine the olive oil, lemon zest, lemon juice, garlic, rosemary, and 1 teaspoon of pepper in a glass dish that is big enough to hold the flatten chicken. Add the chicken and mix to coat. Cover the dish with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator overnight.

Heat up your grill. I used an indoor grill because I was too lazy to prepare the charcoal grill. Place the chicken on the grill, skin side up and weight it down with the dish you used to marinate the chicken. Cook for 12-15 minutes or until the underside is golden brown. Turn the chicken skin side down and weight it down with the same dish. Cook for 12-15 minutes, until golden brown. Place the cut lemons of the grill, cut side down for 10 minutes.

Remove the chicken from the grill and place on a cutting board and cover with foil. Allow to rest for 5 minutes. Cut the chicken into quarters, sprinkle with salt and pepper and serve with the cut lemons. Enjoy!

잘 먹겠습니다 (jal meokkesseumnida)

Adapted from: Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics