When the lights went out last week, I was just about to hop in the car to pick up our son Nicholas at the airport. It was the start of a festive weekend, with both sons home and several family birthdays to celebrate. I had planned a special dinner for that Thursday evening, with a spinach-beet salad, an elaborate new chicken dish, and a giant baked cookie cake with candles.
Fat chance.
The normal 20-minute drive to the airport took an hour and fifteen minutes, thanks to clogged intersections and clueless drivers. The trip home took over two hours. The sun was setting as we pulled into the driveway and I sprinted into the kitchen to get as much prep done as possible before total darkness descended.
With six big flashlights and a GE Fluorescent Lantern stationed strategically on the countertops and beside the stove (our Wolf gas range was operating), Nicholas and I set to work. The spinach salad was a “go” –-- he cooked the beets in water spiked with orange juice, crumbled the goat cheese, and made a snappy vinaigrette with shallots and orange zest.
But the planned chicken dish was too complicated. So, in the last wisps of daylight, I quickly thumbed through Rozanne Gold’s cookbook “Radically Simple,” in search of a chicken creation that I could make, basically, blindfolded.
BLT Chicken with Cumin Seed & Lime Mayonnaise was a huge hit. It was easy enough to pound and marinate the boneless chicken breasts, then cook them on my Scanpan stove-top grill. The “salad” of crisped bacon, romaine and halved cherry tomatoes was very do-able-in-darkness, too. Ditto the “zesty” mayo topping.
We ate in our garden surrounded by a dozen real candles and a bunch of the battery-operated LED pillar candles that Costco sells. (I bought a load of those things because they’re cheap and, I think, very romantic. Little did I know I’d need them to navigate around my own house during nine hours of moon-less blackness.)
Dinner wasn’t ready ‘til close to 10, and by then I had abandoned the fantasy of making a birthday cake. Instead, I turned to a package of Nestle Ultimates Chocolate Chip Cookies, which we attempted to cook on a cookie sheet on our backyard gas grill. They weren’t the prettiest cookies – those closest to the heat source were scorched – but they tasted great, and with yet another candle stuck in one of them, they conveyed the appropriate birthday wishes.
Here’s the recipe for BLT CHICKEN. Gold’s book has dozens of equally delicious and easy dishes that are even easier when you can see what you’re doing. It’s available at Amazon.com.
By the way, an ordinary kitchen mess becomes a mega mess when you're operating by candles and flashlight. We left it 'til morning.
BLT CHICKEN WITH CUMIN SEEDS & LIME MAYONNAISE
Serves 4
1/3 cup mayonnaise
Grated zest and juice of one large lime
4 large boneless chicken breasts, skin-on
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 large garlic cloves
5 ounces thick-cut bacon
2 large ripe tomatoes, cut into ½-inch pieces
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
6 ounces baby romaine, cut into 1 ½-inch pieces
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
Salt and black pepper, to taste
Preheat the broiler. Stir together the mayonnaise, lime zest, 1 teaspoon lime juice, and pepper. Set aside. Toss the chicken with the olive oil, 2 tablespoons lime juice, and garlic pushed through a press. Add salt and pepper and broil, skin side down, several inches from the heat, for 3 minutes. Turn and broil 5 minutes longer, until the skin is crispy.
Meanwhile, cut the bacon into ½-inch pieces. Cook in a large skillet over medium heat until the fat is rendered, 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes and cumin and cook 3 minutes over high heat. Add the romaine and vinegar and cook until wilted. (I like it still somewhat firm.)Add salt and pepper. Serve the chicken topped with the lettuce mixture and a dollop of lime mayonnaise.
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