Lemon Brown Sugar Chicken

Winter arrived yesterday with a decided vigor.  Sunday the sun was shining and the temperature a balmy 16, yesterday we woke to wet and sloppy snow, although the temperature did hover above zero for most of the day.  Yuck.  I wish I could afford to winter someplace warm.  I think Australia would be nice, since our winter is their summer & I could live in perpetual summer time.  Ah, if only.
Emily returned home from her dad's Sunday evening, brimming with stories, and eager to cook Monday night.  I told her about a recipe I had tripped over on line over the weekend, and she thought it sounded really good.  I found it and she decided it would be a fine dinner.  Monday morning she decided she wanted mashed potatoes and gravy as a side, which sounded fine to me, and a plan was laid.  I headed out for work and she was off to school.
I stopped on my way home for chicken breasts and potatoes, and then for a nice bottle of wine.
I laid the chicken between pieces of cling wrap and showed Emily how to use the meat mallet to flatten the pieces out into lovely flat fillets, which she then dredged in flour, salt and paprika an browned quickly in a frying pan.  Once the chicken was browned she placed it on a baking pan and I showed her how to deglaze the pan with lemon juice, scraping up all the tasty little brown bits and reducing the volume of the juice, which we then poured over the chicken.  Once the juice was drizzled liberally over the chicken she sprinkled the breasts with lemon zest and brown sugar.  The pan then went into the oven to bake for 20 minutes.
In the meantime I had talked her into mashed potatoes with the skins on, not wanting to take the time to peel several smallish potatoes.  Instead we scrubbed and quartered then and put them on to boil.  Once they were tender Emily was all too eager to dive in with the potato masher.  I added butter, milk, salt & pepper and helped her mash them well, although with the skins you cannot get them as smooth and fluffy as you do peeling them.  But the skins are full of nutrients, they look very rustic, and they taste great.  And you don't spend 20 minutes or more peeling them.
Emily made a packet of onion gravy and decided not to prepare the broccoli that was in the fridge.  We were out of frozen mixed vegetables so she opened a can she found in the cupboard, one rescued from the trailer when we cleared out all the canned goods before freeze up.

Dinner was very good, although Emily thought the chicken was perhaps too lemony.  I like lemon flavour a lot, but I think a little less juice might have been better.  And perhaps a little more sugar to balance the sour lemon.  It was certainly quick and easy to make, although it looked and tasted like there was a lot more effort involved.  It was also relatively light, with only a brief dredging of flour and only a few minutes in olive oil to brown it.

Lemon Brown Sugar Chicken

2 tablespoons olive oil                            

1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts, pounded thin

juice of 2 large lemons (3-4 tablespoons)

1 tablespoon lemon zest

1/2 cup flour

1 teaspoon paprika

1 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons brown sugar

Preheat the oven to 350F.  Heat the oil over medium high heat in a large skillet. 

Combine the flour, salt & paprika in a shallow pan, coat the chicken with this mixture.  Drop each chicken breast in the hot oil and brown on both sides.  Remove to a baking dish.

Pour the lemon juice into the pan and stir to deglaze.  Pour the lemon juice over the chicken breasts.  

Sprinkle with lemon zest and brown sugar.

Bake 20-25 minutes, until cooked through.