Chicken with Lemon and Green Olives
A Tuscan classic: chicken browned in olive oil, then brought together slowly with green olives and lemon.
- Time
- 60 minutes
- Serves
- 4
- Level
- Medium
- Cuisine
- Italian
The meeting of green olives and lemon over chicken is a signature of North African cooking — in Morocco it appears as a tagine, made with salt-preserved lemons. This recipe is that pairing adapted to the Mediterranean coast, working with fresh lemon.
The reason the combination works is chemical: chicken is fatty and neutral; the olives bring salt and umami, the lemon brings acid. Fat, salt, acid — three of the components that balance a plate, all present, with the fourth, heat, used properly too: a hard sear first, then a slow simmer.
Directions
- Rub the chicken pieces with salt and pepper.
- Heat the olive oil in a wide cast-iron pan and brown the chicken on all sides.
- Add the garlic, rosemary and thyme and cook for a minute.
- Pour in the wine or stock and let it bubble hard for 2 minutes.
- Add the olives and lemon slices, then squeeze in the lemon juice.
- Cook over low heat, partly covered, for 35 minutes, until the chicken is done.
- Serve with fresh bread or risotto.
Tips & storage
Colour from the sear is flavour. Browning every surface of the chicken is not just about looks; the Maillard reaction is where the whole depth of the sauce comes from. Don't crowd the pan — sear in batches.
If not wine, then stock — not water. Deglazing with water lifts the browned residue from the base of the pan but adds nothing. Chicken stock or white wine makes a real difference.
Use green olives with stones. Pitted ones spend longer in brine and come out saltier; they also break up during cooking.
Lid half on. A fully closed lid thins the sauce, an open pan dries it out. Left ajar, thirty-five minutes gives the right consistency.
Leave the salt until last. The olives give up their salt to the sauce as they cook. Salted at the start, the sauce is too salty by the end.
Cook the lemon slices, add the juice late. The slices sweeten as they simmer with the sauce; the fresh juice, added just before the pan comes off, keeps its sharpness.
Storage. Two days in the fridge; the sauce is better the next day, though the chicken dries slightly.
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