Double Lemon Chicken

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.

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).

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

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.