I had wanted to welcome John home from his business trip with something I knew he'd love, and since bacon is one of the more direct routes to his heart, bacon-wrapped chicken sounded perfect. So the evening he was due home, I got dinner going, changed into a clean shirt, and brushed the baby's hair.
I attempted this recipe for Broiled Bacon-Wrapped Chicken with broiled sweet potatoes (I went ahead and skipped the whole watercress part). Martha assured me that my broiler was an underused kitchen workhorse that would cook quickly and brown evenly. My broiling track record isn't a good one, so I followed her directions obsessively, painstakingly slicing the sweet potatoes into 1/4-inch slices and actually measuring the distance between my pan and the heating element. These were the broiled sweet potatoes I got: black on one side and raw on the other.
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| Inedible. And smoky. |
John arrived just in time. He took one look at my blackened sweet potato mess and asked why I was trying the broiler again. Then he took one look at me and asked if I knew that my shirt was on inside out.
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| Not as beautiful as Martha's, but just as delicious. |
But here's where the chicken stepped up and saved the day. It was delicious. I abandoned all hope of broiling (burning) it and just baked the breasts. The bacon was cooked through and lovely, and the chicken was tender and bacon flavored. After defrosting a frozen vegetable and giving up on our potatoes, we had a great family meal together to welcome back our weary traveler.
Recipe: Bacon-Wrapped Chicken Breasts
Bacon
Chicken breasts (or whatever you like)
Set the oven to 400. Make sure you have one slice of bacon per each piece of meat to be wrapped. If using breasts, cut them in half the long way (butterfly style) to thin them out. Wrap one slice of bacon around each piece of chicken. Bake low in the oven on a foil and parchment lined pan until cooked through, about 30-40 mins.
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