Diana Henry’s Pacific Lime Chicken
Adapted from Pure Simple Cooking.
Yield: enough for 2 people with leftovers
Prep time: Pacific Lime Chicken benefits from marinating, but I’ve thrown the dish together, let it sit for ten minutes, and shoved it in the oven. It’s delicious either way. Actual preparation time is minimal.
You’ll need a small bowl and a large baking dish to make this.
4-6 large chicken thighs, skin on, bone-in, the best you can afford
4 tablespoons soy sauce (see notes)
2-5 tablespoons honey (a matter of personal preference, but don’t use less than two)
juice of 4 limes (see notes)
3-4 large garlic cloves, crushed, peeled, and minced
Brown or palm sugar: 1/4 teaspoon-one tablespoon (see notes)
about a tablespoon of fresh black pepper
Instructions
If you can marinate the chicken, great: four hours is optimal. It not, not.
When ready to cook, preheat the oven to 350C/180F
Arrange chicken in single layer in the baking dish.
Combine the soy sauce, honey, lime juice, garlic, sugar, and pepper in a small bowl. Pour over the chicken. Marinate chicken 10 minutes-4 hours. Refrigerate chicken if marinating over ten minutes; bring to room temperature before cooking.
Cook chicken for about an hour, checking to ensure liquid does not run dry; if it i does, add a little white wine or water.
Chicken is done with a knife is easily inserted near the bone, meat is no longer pink, and juices run clear.
Eat. Or allow chicken to cool completely and freeze in a freezer-proof container up to two months.
For health and safety reasons, I should instruct you to defrost chicken overnight in the refrigerator. Consider yourself told. I remove it from the freezer and leave it on my kitchen counter for several hours, checking frequently. Once the chicken is defrosted, I refrigerate it until serving time.
Pacific Lime Chicken is ideally reheated in a low oven, but when you’re recovering from illness or other medical interventions, the microwave oven will suffice. The chicken skin won’t be crisp, but you probably won’t care.
Pacific Lime Chicken pairs well with almost any side: rice, noodles, couscous, bread, potatoes, bagged salad greens, any vegetable you have around.
Refrigerate leftover chicken up to four days; it’s delicious at any temperature and makes wonderful sandwiches.
Notes:
Henry cooks her chicken at 375F/190C; you can, too, but check to ensure the skin is browning, not burning. If it’s too dark, either cover it with foil or turn the oven down.
I depart from Henry’s recipe in a few ways: I often skip the tablespoon of brown sugar called for, or reduce it to a quarter teaspoon. The recipe also calls for thyme sprigs, which live in my freezer and in this case, tend to stay there.
The recipe calls for dark soy sauce. Regular soy sauce is fine if you don’t have dark.
I don’t always have limes in the house. Lemons are another story. I’ve made this dish using all lemon juice and a mixture of lemon and lime juices. Both were good.