Double Lemon Chicken Recipe (2024)

Nice recipe.Real preserved lemon recipe:Sliced lemon (seeds removed) are layered in a glass jar (pasta sauce jar's OK) with 5% (by wt) salt.You MUST create anaerobic conditions. Press slices down hard after each layer to release juice, and pack jar to the very top to dispel air. The juice's Vitamin C absorbs residual oxygen: the rind's natural yeast can now do its thing. Keep in sunlight for 3 weeks (greenhouse effect).Lasts 1yr+ at room temp. Use *with* syrupy juice: reduce recipe's salt.

Just use about 4oz preserved lemon, remove seeds if any, and mince. Preserved vs plain lemon is like good wine vs grape juice. Natural-yeast fermentation destroys the peel's bitter phenolics: when you open the jar, the fragrance hits you 6ft away. Minced or blended, it's very versatile: add to dressings/marinades/pilaf, even savory Italian or Chinese dishes. It's easier to make at home than an omelet. The secret ingredients are time and lack of air: resist the urge to open the jar prematurely.

Dan: just skip the cooking step: cut your already preserved lemon in slices, remove the seeds and blitz in the blender, all per the recipe

Jeff:Amateur etymologist here. Crispy goes way back and is, of course, related to crisp - derived from it, in fact. However, crispy developed to describe prepared foods specifically, while crisp remains de jure for all other things that are stiff and crackly.

While we’re at it, can we call a moratorium on the use of the word “crispy?” I defy anyone to create a sentence using the word “crispy” (as an adjective) where the word “crisp” would not have sufficed. “Crispy” is up there with “yummy” — no one over the age of five should be using them.

Any changes anyone would recommend if we actually have preserved lemons on hand?

This was good but not worth all of the work and dirty pans/food processor. I'll stick with my go to of pounding out chicken breasts, seasoning (salt, pepper, paprika, cayenne, dipping in egg and then in flour and pan frying them in a combination of tbl canola oil and tbl butter. Pull the chicken out and add about a cup of chicken stock, a touch more flour if needed, and whisk in fresh lemon juice and zest. Add chicken back to sauce and warm through. One pan and just as tasty (if not more).

Hi Katey and Dan, I have made this recipe twice successfully with my own preserved lemons. I blitz 150 grams of lemons and the 60 ml of lemon juice leave out the salt flakes, the preserved lemons are plenty salty! I also skip the salt seasoning at the end of the lemon sauce recipe but keep the pepper and that makes a fine sauce .

I find Ottolenghi inspirational but sometimes his recipes are more complicated than necessary—I.e., given the results. I made this dish by thinly slicing and pounding chicken breasts and flouring them lightly with OO. These sautéd, crisp cutlets were served with the sauce, which Ioved. In making the sauce, the only deviation is that I sliced a regular lemon (removing seeds) and added the slices early on in making the sauce. Served with roasted Brussels sprouts.

Rather than pounding the chicken - which can shred it - I roll it with my marble rolling pin.

I was thinking of just putting a few preserved lemons into the food processor and seeing what happened...but this recipe looks quite fussy to me, and needlessly so. I make chicken schnitzel/paillards regularly and dredge the pounded breasts in flour, egg and panko, saute in oil, and then squeeze lemon over them and maybe add capers. I get the coating brown and crispy and put them in the oven to finish/keep warm, serve with rice and something green.I might make the preserved lemon paste, though

I'm not sure how this recipe winds up being discussed as "crispy" chicken as there's nothing "crispy" about this. If you want crispy, then you need something like flour, breadcrumbs or panko to dredge the chicken in prior to frying. Make that simple addition, and you'll have crispy chicken.Also +1 to all of the comments re. using preserved lemons vs. this cheater's paste. Finally, there's too much corn starch in the sauce as written. I used about half of that and it was more than adequate.

Make life easy - buy a jar of New York Shuk Preserved Lemon Paste. (it works for zillions of other recipes too). And while we're at it, can we please eliminate "melty", along with "crispy" and "yummy"?

I'm a big Ottolenghi fan, but this was sadly a total miss for me. Tossing all the ingredients into the pot and boiling together without first blooming the aromatics resulted in a sludgy, vaguely bitter sauce that I had to dose with fresh lemon juice and Lebanese garlic paste to make palatable. The cornstarch technique with the chicken was interesting, but resulted in chewy, not crispy, cutlets that were glued to the skillet. Next time, I'll stick with Wiener Schnitzel and fresh lemon!

Real preserved lemon recipe:Sliced lemon (seeds removed) are layered in a glass jar (pasta sauce jar's OK) with 5% (by wt) salt.You MUST create anaerobic conditions. Press slices down hard after each layer to release juice, and pack jar to the very top to dispel air. The juice's Vitamin C absorbs residual oxygen: the rind's natural yeast can now do its thing.Keep in sunlight for 3 weeks (greenhouse effect).Lasts 1yr+ at room temp. Use *with* syrupy juice: reduce recipe's salt.

Don't worry if your cheater's lemon paste absorbs all liquid and looks a little burnt after about 10 minutes...this happened to me, I added a little bit more lemon juice to deglaze the pan, and I ended up using all of the charred lemon and brown bits at the bottom of the pan to make the paste. My sauce came out WONDERFUL with a rich, tangy flavor. You can't mess it up!

This was a lot of work for an uninteresting dish (and yes, I followed the recipe exactly). It was edible, but will not make again.

I skipped the cheater preserves lemon step and added 3 tablespoons of New York Shuk preserved lemon paste. I also bloomed the aromatics in the sauce. It was delicious with these modifications. My family loved it. Will make again.

Cook the chicken for longer, use a thermometer to make sure it reaches 160F. Also, mine came out waterier than expected. Use more cornstarch in the sauce or cut the chicken broth down by about a cup if you want a thicker sauce. The preserved lemon paste came out delicious, that was my favorite part to make.

Corn starch and corn flour are two quite different ingredients - which one is it?

Great! C and R liked. More lemon in sauce

I made this for a dinner party, as is. It was a bit fussy, but my guests still reminisce about it years later. I made it again for a different group, same result. It is not crispy, it is smooth and tender and moist - and very lemony, but not overwhelming.

Far too fiddly and far too much washing-up for a Monday night. Emotionally draining. Could be simplified as per the other comments. I wish I had read those comments beforehand because I would not be typing this comment if I had. Even so, it was delicious and the brightest idea for chicken breast that I’ve come across in a good long while.

Wanted to try this recipe, as I love lemon, the food turned out tasty but would not make again or recommend - reason being the time and amount of clean up needed just wasn’t worth the end result. I’m sure there’s plenty of other lemon chicken recipes that have just as good flavor for less effort in the kitchen.

First, it's a lot of work for a weeknight meal. Won't repeat just for that reason.Second, the sauce was 4 times the quantity needed for a 4 plate dish--unless you're going for an almost-soup. It was nothing distinctive; aromatics were overrun by the garlic.I see many comments about the lemon paste--mostly about the "correct" way to do it. FWIW, I have seen this method of creating the lemon paste in more than one recipe.

It was alot of work and putting the chicken in the lemon sauce and continuing to cook makes it sort of soggy and the lemon sauce in the end wasn’t lemony enough. Won’t make again. Ps the lemon paste is great though.

This was very tasty. Due to the many detailed steps, it's more of a weekend recipe.

I made this tonight without reading the comments on the recipe, which I NEVER do, and well, I'm a little sad that I didn't. There is so much effort going into this recipe, and I found it very lackluster. I really think the missing ingredient is umami. If I ever try this again, I will add either Yondu or fish sauce to the sauce itself.

A little much of everything for my taste, and quite involved to make. The chicken comes out beautifully, but then is outcompeted by all the herbs, lemon and cumin. I‘ll borrow the method/recipe for marinating the chicken and the cheaters preserved lemon paste for other things, though.

I found if you used boneless thighs and ditched the lemon sauce this makes a pretty decent karaage.