Recipe Notes: Skillet-roasted Chicken Breasts with Green Beans

20 March 2019

Recipe from Cook's Illustrated, January 2019

The January 2019 issue of Cook's Illustrated included this simple, one-pan recipe for chicken and green beans. The published recipe uses 4 chicken breasts and serves 4. Fortunately the web site has a "for two" version. A variation of the recipe with harissa, mint, and carrots was also presented but I will probably not try this. Harissa is an ingredient we don't stock and it looks too hot for our tastes in any event. However, the garlic-ginger broccoli variant might be worth trying.

The supermarket has fresh green beans, imported from Mexico, but they are not very good and not very fresh tasting, so I used frozen green beans. Two chicken breasts were seasoned under the skin with ¼ teaspoon kosher salt each. The skin was perforated with a skewer, spritzed with vegetable oil, and browned in a skillet on the stove, starting with a cold skillet. The chicken was flipped over and roasted in a 325° oven to an internal temperature of 160°. (To be sure, one of the breasts reached 160° while the other was still at 135°. We ate the former and saved the latter, it would finish cooking when reheated.) The chicken was set aside and the skillet, with drippings, put on to the stove. Sliced garlic, red pepper flakes, and salt were added and cooked until the moisture evaporated and the oil began to sizzle. Green beans and water were added, covered, and cooked until the green beans were tender. Cooking continued without the cover to thicken the sauce. The green beans and chicken were transferred to a plate, sprinkled with grated Parmesan cheese, and served with some crusty bread and Chenin Blanc. Total time was just one hour and much of that time was hands off.

This was a good dish, especially given how easy and quick it was to prepare. It was neither too garlicky nor too spicy. The green beans were good, nicely flavored by the chicken and spices, but over done. I will want to try this dish again when we can get some good, local green beans. We got two dinners and a lunch or two out of this recipe; as usual these days, the chicken breasts were very large, over half a pound each.