Tonight's dinner

[Michael Odom]

It was Donna's turn to take the kid to her guitar lesson, and my turn
to cook. I made chicken.

I marinated chicken breast tenders in lemon juice spiked with several
shakes of fish sauce while I caramelized an onion in butter and olive
oil. I really cooked it down, by the way--got a jam-like consistency
after a good while over medium-low heat.

In another pot, I cooked together:

2 chipotle chiles (canned in adobo)
2/3 cup rice wine (salted)
3 Tbsp orange juice concentrate
1 Tbsp Mexican raw sugar
6-8 allspice berries
1 small cinnamon stick (actually it was canela)

Cooked it all for a while and let it sit a while longer. Then I
blended it till it was quite smooth, and returned it to the pot to
reduce over medium heat for a while longer. It got fairly thick
towards the end of cooking.

When the onions were brown and sweet and gummy, I added a Tbsp or so
of the chipotle/orange reduction to them to finish the jam.

I drained the marinade off the chicken parts (parts is parts, sir) and
sauteed them in butter and olive oil. Got them nice and brown on all
sides. Then I deglazed the pan with lemon juice and dolloped in a
couple of spoonfulls of the chipotle/orange reduction for the spice
that was in them. I finished the chicken with a little chopped
cilantro.

I served the chicken with sliced cherry tomatoes and some curly
endive--the bitterness of the greens served to cut the sweetness of
the chipotle stuff and the caramelized onions which i piled on top of
the chicken.

On the side I served scalloped Yukon gold potatoes and spinach. It
was all pretty good.

M.Odom is at modomatunicompdotnet