Zingy Grilled Lime Chicken #recipe #mystery @abbottmysteries

Zingy Grilled Lime Chicken from Victoria Abbott aka Mary Jane and Victoria Maffini

 

So refreshing: everywhere I looked, there were limes: nice juicy, bright green ones, just begging to be squeezed and zested.



 Of course, I always buy too many and then need extra ways to use them.  I'd recently also stocked up on boneless, skinless chicken thighs (because I think that they are juicier and tastier than chicken breasts) and wondered if there was a way to combine these two ingredients to use on the barbecue on our steamy summer evenings.  The chicken would be easy and the lime would be refreshing.

A search of cookbooks came up empty, but searching for lime and chicken I found a lovely recipe that I could adapt to use what I had on GIMME SOME OVEN, a site that was new to me. I’ll be visiting there often - lots of nice recipes with fresh foods.  I had to make a few changes to the ingredients to suit my plan and adapted the directions for my plan to grill the chicken, but I  loved Ali's suggestion to sprinkle the cooked chicken with lime zest and chopped cilantro (another thing I had too much of!). It really makes a delicious difference.

This recipe calls for marinating in a zippered plastic bag. That’s long been one of our favorite ways to marinate and it’s a great way to marinate chicken for the freezer.  Freeze the chicken in the marinade, thaw it out and it’s ready to go with some extra zing because of the long marinating time.

So here’s Zingy Grilled Lime Chicken 

Ingredients

3 pounds skinless boneless thighs

Juice and zest of three large limes

3 minced garlic cloves (ours were not in the best of shape, so we used three teaspoons  jarred garlic)

2 tablespoons chopped parsley (we were out and used two tablespoons from the tube)

1 ½ tablespoons Worchestershire sauce

1 ½ tsp sea salt

1 ½  tsp black pepper

2 green onions chopped

3 dashes Tabasco or other hot sauce

1/4 cup fresh cilantro (which we did have!)

Directions

Zest the limes.  I always use my trusty zester from Lee Valley, now in its tenth year with us.

Put zest  aside in a small bowl and cover until serving.  Chop the cilantro, Put aside in a small bowl, covered.

In a medium bowl combine well lime juice, Worchestershire, Tabasco, salt, pepper, garlic, parsley and green onions. 

Add chicken to the zippered bag and cover with mixture.

 

How easy was that?  You are now ready to marinate in the fridge for at least four hours (Overnight would be even better.!) Or you could freeze it.  We chose marinate! But in future we'll make sure to have a bag of these chicken thighs in the freezer for a quick meal.

Remove from bag and place on platter or dish.  Pour marinade into a dish.

Grease grill and set to 375.  Arrange chicken on grill . We use our Big Green Egg, but any grill will do,

Brush with marinade. Grill for fifteen minutes. Turn, baste with marinade and cook for five more minutes or until cooked through.

Transfer to a platter and sprinkle cooked chicken with the lime zest and the cilantro.  Yum!

Cool but spicy for sure!  We also served fresh summer corn and our spicy slaw. We'll be sharing that recipe in September. 

We're sure you know that the shadowy figure that is Victoria Abbott is a collaboration between us, Victoria and Mary Jane Maffini, seen here getting in the mood for our fifth book collector mystery, The Hammett Hex.

Speaking of cool and zingy, we think The Hammett Hex has plenty of cool zing and a little bit of spice with its trip to San Francisco, romantic difficulties and danger in Hammett's old haunts. 

We hope you'll join us in this tasty trip complete with the recipes for Officer Tyler Dekker's favorite childhood dishes.

Don't want to wait a minute longer than you have to?  Why not PRE-ORDER IT HERE! or at your favorite source of books?

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