Thursday, June 5, 2008

Supper on the Grill

Last night I popped into the grocery store and found two lovely nectarines. I couldn't resist! So I made a fun little salsa with them, and served them as a topping for grilled jerked chicken breasts over steamed brown rice.

Wow!



What a lovely alfresco meal! Here's how I did it:
I marinated three fat chicken breasts (about 1.25 pounds) with a good 1/4 cup of prepared jerk seasoning blend and a little olive oil for about 6 hours in the refrigerator today. When the charcoal was ready, I grilled off the chicken.


Here you can see that I over-charred the exterior... but the inside stayed tender and juicy.

The nectarine salsa was made in the morning and marinated in the refrigerator for several hours. Here's the recipe:


Nectarine Salsa
adapted from this recipe
makes about 2 cups

2 ripe nectarines, stoned and diced
2 green onions, white and green parts, chopped
1/4 cup cilantro, finely chopped
1 serrano chile, chopped (with or without seeds, as you wish; I left them out for a very mild heat)
1 teaspoon sugar (I used sugar substitute)
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground grains of paradise
zest of 1 lime
juice of 1 lime

Combine all ingredients and refrigerate for several hours to allow flavors to marry.


Even though I enjoyed it, I felt that this salsa still lacked something. I think in the future I'll add orange juice instead of lime for more of a sweet balance, and probably a second chile.

After supper, we enjoyed grilled peaches and cream. (I ate mine in sugar-free hazelnut flavored non-dairy creamer. Yummy!)


It was a really nice finish to a lovely meal.

3 comments:

Mary said...

The chicken looks delicious! It's so hot here I may never turn on my stove/oven again. Hooray for grilling!

Anonymous said...

I -love- over-charred exteriors.

There was some recipe I found years ago for mint sugar sprinkled over grilled stone fruit. You just blast sugar and fresh mint in a food processor. It's good over all sorts of things.

Amanda said...

Hi, Mary! It seems to be getting hot here, as well. Two weeks ago I was still wearing sweatshirts, but that seems to be over now... finally! Yay for summer! Yay for grilling!

Michele--great tip! Perfect for simple entertaining. I, too, prefer well done grilled exterior. Give me a burned hot dog any day! (Imagine a Homer Simpson-esque voice saying, "Mmmmmm... hot dogs...")

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