Experiment 6 - Chili-Spiced Chicken - The Results

I have several things to say about this recipe  ...

First of all, who measure jalapeno peppers in teaspoons?  I have no problem cutting a pepper in half and seeding it, and chopping it up, but seriously, "one teaspoon".  Feh.  I used what I determined to be "a resonable amount".

And then there was the was canned tomatoes.  Whole tomates, but chopped.  Why not just use diced tomatoes, like the several cans I already had in the pantry?  Maybe they didn't have those back in 1995, I don't know.  I went ahead and bought the can, it was only 74 cents.

And finally, overall, this is exactly the type of dish that I'd have made without a recipe.  I'm the king of sautéing some chicken and adding some stuff.  OK, maybe I wouldn't have thought to use the corn starch to thicken up the gravy at the end, and I certainly never measure my spices with such precision, but still...  One of the reasons I started this experiment was to step away from such simple meals and gain some cooking chops, but I kept true to the random selection, so it is what it is.

All that said, let's talk about making this recipe.

First step was to combine all the spices (first five ingredients) and sprinkle over the chicken.  Then coat a large skillet with cooking spray and add the oil and heat it up over medium heat.  The chicken then got cooked for about two minutes per side.  Mine actually took a tad longer to be satisfactorily browned all 'round.  Once I was happy with the chicken, I dumped in the tomatoes, pepper and green onions, covered the skillet and simmered for twenty minutes.  After that, the chicken was removed to a serving plate using a slotted spoon.  The water and corn starch were combined, then stirred into the tomatoes and liquid left in the pan.  Brought that to a boil and stirred it for about two minutes.

While the chicken mixture was simmering, I prepared by chosen side dishes - my favorite yellow rice and  a small bit of guacamole.  The final presentation had a piece of chicken with the gravy spooned on top, rice on the side and a "guacamole salad" as they sometimes say at the local Mexican restaurants.

The end result was quite tasty, but in the long run, this isn't the type of recipe I need to keep on hand -- as I said, it's all about sautéing some chicken and adding some stuff.  So yeah, I'll make this again - or something incredibly similar.  Just not as part of the Recipe Box Experiment.

Lessons Learned - Not a damn thing.
Tools needed - nothing new this week.
Skills needed - nothing new this week.