When you’re grilling for a dinner party, the biggest problem is serving people at roughly the same time. Unless you’re doing something simple like burgers or hot dogs (and weren’t we tired of those by the end of June?), or seafood (fussy and can get expensive), you need a new plan.
Last weekend we had 10 people for dinner. With some advance prep work and a clean, hot grill, dinner was served in no time. The key? Chicken that was pounded thin and marinated well.
Grilled Greek Herb Chicken is definitely going into my rotation. The combination of right-from-the-garden herbs and freshly-squeezed lemon juice infused into the chicken made it tasty and moist.
You can buy chicken cutlets, but they tend to cost more. I bought a “family pack” 5 pound package of chicken breasts for a little over $10. Pounding them is a bit time consuming and slightly messy, but pretty easy. Take a chicken breast and trim off the excess fat. Rinse it in water (keeps it from sticking), put it into a gallon sized zip top bag, press out most of the air, and use the flat side of your meat mallet to pound the meat into an even thickness. After every few whacks, run your hand across the bag to find thick spots, and hold up the bag to the light to see which spots need to be left alone. Yes, there will be pieces that come off or get trimmed away; save them and either poach for a small chicken salad, or for your dog.
I layered the cutlets with the marinade in a large shallow dish and left it in the ‘fridge for about 8 hours. Surprisingly they all went onto the grill in one layer (we have just a standard gas grill), and went from cold to cooked through in about 6 minutes.
This was fabulous served with a Greek Orzo Salad, Zucchini Gratin, and a Plum Upside Down Cake (if you want to see photos – follow me on Twitter).
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