Chicken tapenade and green beans gremolata

Chicken Supremes with tapenade and mushroom sauce

Jacques Pepin “More Fast Food My Way”

This recipe calls for putting tapenade into slits in chicken breasts, which are then pan fried. You set aside the cooked chicken in a slow oven to keep warm, and make a sauce of mushrooms, onions and white wine in the pan.

The tapenade was wonderful, a definite keeper with other uses. The chicken didn’t turn out quite as well. It was hard to contain all the tapenade within the slits, so I wound up mixing the remaining tapenade into the mushroom sauce, which was tasty, but not very attractive. Even though I cooked the chicken far longer than called for, it wasn’t done in the middle. 

Tapenade ingredients:

2 dried apricots, 8 anchovy fillets, ¾ cup Kalamata and/or green olives (pitted), 1½ tablespoons capers, 1 minced garlic clove, 2 tablespoons olive oil. Whir together in food processor.

Since I wasn’t in love with the rest of the recipe, I’ll send you here if you’re interested in seeing the full, original recipe.

I had better luck with Green Beans Gremolata from “Barefoot Contessa Foolproof.” This was the second recipe I’ve made from this cookbook this year, so it doesn’t count toward my total quest to cook a new recipe from every cookbook I own, but it was tasty and worth repeating. I didn’t have the pine nuts called for and used slivered almonds instead, but it was still quite fine.

Green beans gremolata

Adapted from “Barefoot Contessa Foolproof.” 

You can find the full, original recipe at the link here.

One package fresh green beans, steamed in the bag, drained and seasoned lightly with salt

Top with gremolata: the zest of 1 large lemon, 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan, 3 tablespoons chopped parsley, 2 minced garlic cloves, a ¼ cup toasted nuts. (The slivered almonds were fine, but I imagine the pine nuts are even better. I reduced the amount of Parmesan cheese because otherwise it seemed likely to overwhelm things)