Very Quick and Healthy Yogurt Chicken

DISCLAIMER: This is not a recipe that anyone and everyone will enjoy. Please cook with caution.

Having cooked numerous times in the past week, following various recipes, I decided I’ve had enough. I had been more careful with the instructions than usual, so I felt that I missed the creativity of the thing. Also, since I cooked a lot of Mexican and Indian cuisine lately, I felt like making something closer to my roots.

Thus it came to be that the chicken fajitas I promised my boyfriend never came to be. Instead, I opted for chicken marinated in yogurt with lots of seasoning and flavors. This served the dual purpose of me cooking what I actually felt like having, and getting rid of a brand of yogurt that I had purchased for the first time, which proved to be nearly inedible. No oil was used in this recipe, and the yogurt was fat free, so it’s quite healthy.

Firstly I filleted the monster-sized chicken breasts I find myself buying lately (about 1.25kg in total). I chopped up 1 yellow onion and 1 red onion in 8 segments each, to maintain that chunky feel. 2 garlic cloves were crushed with the flat of a knife’s blade and added to the pile. All the ingredients were put in a zipper bag, along with A LOT of 0% fat yoghurt (I just needed to use up as much as I could), and mixed with vegetable stock granules, garlic powder, salt, pepper, paprika, and possibly more things that I am perhaps now forgetting. Quantities for the spices are not specified, as I believe in self-expression and individuality manifested through cooking. It has definitely nothing to do with me having no idea how much of each I put in the bag.

The ingredients were mixed well and left in the fridge to marinade for a couple of hours, mourn their impending doom and recover from the shock of being tossed around (and partially spilled on the counter-top when the zipper back accidentally opened by being handled so violently).

As usual, dinner time was defined by my degree of hunger. About 20 minutes before I was hungry enough to start chewing on the tablecloth, I decided to get cracking. Firstly I sprayed a saucepan with non-stick spray and laid the chicken to cook. Once the one side was done (you will know it is cooked if you lift it slightly and it looks cooked) I flipped it over and put the rest of the contents of the bag in the saucepan and let it all simmer. I removed the cloves of garlic, as they would make a smelly couple of mouthfuls, and let the liquids evaporate. Some might say I even burned the sauce a bit, but I think leaving it brown very very well just gives it extra flavor. Also the chicken remained quite moist (please ignore the terrible word, it’s the only one this language has), so no harm done.

For a side dish I made plain wild rice, and my veggies for this meal were wild arugula leaves, with a honey-balsamic dressing.

All in all, it was a successful meal. No pans burned, no fingers cut, no plates broken. 10/10, will cook again.

PS. Ingredients in bold. Quantities may vary.