Marsha's Poached Lemon Pepper Chicken

Well, I agree with the wise South African ex-president, with the exception of one instance: the act of Poaching (and NO, no African Elephant Poaching pun intended here, really);  I mean poaching chicken!

Poaching chicken makes delicious, juicy, quick, mildly flavorful chicken in 20 minutes or less.  For real!  And it’s perfect for freezing the shredded or chunked up pieces for later use, which, as you all know by now, I do every week.  My friend/co-worker Marsha taught me how to poach chicken, and it is WONDERFUL.

Aromatic Waters

First up, the aromatics.  Aromatics are what flavor up your dish.  The “Holy Trinity” of aromatics usually for me are onion, celery, and carrots, and pretty much always some garlic thrown in there (guess that would make it a quad).  Aromatics are the wonderful scents you smell when you walk into a house and something phenomenal is cooking, and wafting through the air.  The lemon-y-apple-y-cinnamonn-y-onion-y-bay-leaf-y-rosemary-sage-herb smells that make your house smell like home.  To poach this particular dish, I filled 3/4 of the way of my large, tall sided skillet with water, and added sliced lemons, an onion peeled and sliced in half, peppercorns, carrots and celery (and yep, I have kids, they were carrot and celery sticks I’d chopped up and threw in the pot!), a couple of cloves of garlic, and some fresh ginger.  The best part??  You can put WHATEVER in, because it’s totally adaptable to whatever flavors you like.

Next, you bring the aromatics to a boil, add 3 or 4 chicken breasts cut in half (I used three huge ones), re-bring to a boil (uncovered), then boil the chicken for three minutes.  Next, you cover it, and shut off the burner.  And….then you do nothing.

Poaching chicken, in process!

Poached Lemon Chicken

 Guys, this is a perfect, quick, delicious weeknight dinner.  No fuss, no drama, and no difficult cooking techniques.  Just delicious, moist, lemon-y chicken.   Yum!

Related posts:

1. Lovin' the Lemon
2. Carrot Ginger and Chicken Soup
3. Chicken "Noodle" Skillet Soup
4. Cranberry Lemon leanara bars
5. Chicken and Broccoli Alfredo

No Responses to “Marsha's Poached Lemon Pepper Chicken”

1. Samantha Mathews says:

   February 6, 2010 at 13:23

   This is so simple to prepare and looks so good. I¡¯m going to try this very soon. I think your web layout is also new, it looks very elegant.I have a cooking recipe site as well and I¡¯d like to exchange links with you. Let me know if this is possible. Thanks.
2. Cranberry Chicken Walnut Salad | leanKitchen says:

   April 25, 2010 at 17:58

   [...] as always on Sundays, I poached some chicken (3 breasts)and diced it up.  I cut up 2 stalks of celery, 1/3 cup of chopped walnuts, salt and [...]