Chicken in Lemon-Caper Cream Sauce

Tonight's dinner was one of Dan's ideas that began as two simple words: lemon chicken. He suggested it for our meal plan this week, but with no specific recipe in mind. He threw out the idea of using capers, so we stocked up on those, in preparation.

When it came to making dinner, I did what I do: interpreted his idea into a reality. I love the structure and security of cooking from recipes (it's why I love baking so much), but every so often it's great to take a vacation from that and just make things up as I go. Dan does a lot of the idea generation for our meal plans (most of it, actually) - whereas (despite a bookshelf full of cookbooks) I freeze up when confronted with meal planning. I'm so grateful he's gifted at picking recipes and imagining possible dishes, like this one.

I started with a couple chicken breasts which came (from Amazon Fresh) in a vacuum sealed pouch. I sliced open one end of the pouch, placed it in a pint glass, and poured fresh squeezed lemon juice into the pouch - before putting it back in the fridge to marinate.

About an hour later, I pulled out the chicken. After getting some whole wheat cous cous on to cook, I pounded out the chicken until it was evenly thin (called a paillard). I then seasoned the chicken with some salt & pepper.

In a pan over medium-high heat, I got some butter and olive oil melted and hot, and then placed the paillards of chicken in the pan to cook. After a few minutes, I flipped them to the other side and put on the lid to help them cook through. Once they were just about done, I pulled them out, put them on a plate, and popped them in a 170 degree oven to rest and finish cooking (from residual heat, mainly) while I made the sauce.

I tossed some more butter in the pan (about a Tbspn) and then added the marinade. Some might shudder at the idea of reusing a marinade for a sauce (in fact a recent episode of 'The Next Food Network Star' featured Tyler Florence chastising a contestant for even suggesting it), but I think if you cook the marinade at a high temperature, you're going to kill any wee beasties that might cause trouble - just as you did when you cooked the meat itself. People are way too paranoid about bacteria and need to just use common sense, methinks.

Anyway - the marinade deglazed the pan, picking up the brown bits (aka fond). I added some capers and black pepper, and brought it to a full boil. Then I added a little cream, cooked it down, added a little more, cooked it down - creating a salty, creamy, lemony sauce. I served it all with the cous cous under the chicken breast, and topped with sauce.