Chimichurri, Part 2

When I made chimichurri the other day, it occurred to me to try it with chicken breast. Because, you know, chicken breast can be a little bland. And maybe a little dry. (In your heart, you know it to be true.) So, I tried it tonight. I made a double batch: half for marinade and half for sauce.

Oh. my. goodness.

The beneficent universe must have caused chimichurri to be, knowing that someday people would want to eat and enjoy boneless skinless chicken breast.

The olive oil certainly counteracted any dryness my chicken might have had. And flavor? Yes. Emphatically yes.

Not that I didn't have difficulty. You're remembering, aren't you, that I don't claim to know what I'm doing?

I chose to make chicken cutlets, produced by cutting the breasts in half horizontally. I then put them in a bag with the marinade and squished it around until everything seemed to be covered and put it in the refrigerator.

Note: while my chicken was marinating, I did some web browsing for suggestions on how long I ought to marinade. The same document that suggested two hours also said that marinades impart the most flavor when there's as much acid as oil - this is not true of my chimichurri recipe.  So next time I might make a low-oil version, take some of the mixture for my marinade and then add more oil to what was destined for sauce. (You really can't use marinade for a sauce unless you cook it after the meat is removed.  You know, the whole food poisoning thing.)

The difficulty came when I removed my chicken from the marinade. Since I planned to saute the cutlets, I thought that I ought to get pretty much all the parsley off under the assumption that it would burn. Wiping the marinade off with paper towels proved ineffective, so I wound up rinsing my chicken and drying it with paper towels. There's got to be a better way:I just don't know what it is.

I think, though, that the chimichurri would have made my cutlets delicious had I not marinated at all.

Give it a try.