Calcutta Chicken with Apple-Pepper Relish
(by Edwina Gadsby of Brunswick, GA; this recipe is on a not-otherwise-labled card that indicates it was the grand prize winner in a contest, which thanks to Google I found online: Gold Kist Farms' 1999 Wininng Taste contest)
4 Gold Kist Farms [or, of course, whatever] boneless, skinless, split chicken breasts
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/4 cup frozen apple juice concentrate, thawed
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon minced fresh ginger or 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
Sauce:
1 cup plain low fat yogurt
1/2 cup chopped mango chutney
2 teaspoons lemon juice
2 teaspoons curry powder
Apple-Pepper Relish:
1 cup unpeeled and finely chopped tart green apple
1/3 cup finely chopped red bell pepper
1/3 cup finely chopped red onion
2 teaspoons finely chopped mint leaves
1 tablespoon each lemon juice and honey
Place chicken in shallow non-metallic dish. Combine oil, apple juice, garlic, ginger, and cumin in a 1-cup measure and pour over chicken. Cover and refrigerate 20 minutes, turning once.
To make sauce place yogurt, chutney, and lemon juice in a small bowl. Stir to combine and set aside. Place curry powder in small, dry skillet over medium heat. Toast curry powder just until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add toasted curry powder to yogurt mixture and stir to combine. Cover and refrigerate until serving time.
To make relish, place apple, red pepper, onion, mint, lemon juice and honey in a small bowl. Stir to combine and set aside.
Remove chicken from marinade, discarding marinade [no WAY! keep it! cook in it! -- E&L], and place in a large non-stick skillet. Cook over medium heat until lightly browned and no longer pink inside, about 10 to 12 minutes. Remove chicken to a serving platter, top each piece with relish and spoon a small amount of sauce over top. Pass remaining sauce separately.
4 servings
LYNDA SAYS: I put the chicken on the stove too early; we'd had trouble before with chicken taking longer to cook than recipes stated, but this one's accurate. It did fine with simply being turned down to a low simmer until the rest of the dinner was just about ready, probably in part because we'd also poured most of the marinade into the skillets. 12 chicken breasts meant three burners full o' chicken skillets on the stove, but we could've used more for the number of people who actually showed up tonight. Tripling the sauce and relish recipes, however, made FAR too much sauce and relish -- a single recipe might've sufficed, and a double certainly would have been plenty. Note to Self in case we do this again: We have enough friends who don't care for peppers that splitting out a third of the relish to keep pepper-free was the wrong proportion; we should up this to half.
EMILY SAYS: This was tasty. When I saw that Lynda had kept the marinade, I completely approved. It would have been silly to waste it by throwing it away. I thought this was tasty, although it ended up being a little heavy for me.