Summertime means cooking outdoors on the grill. But doesn’t mean it puts an end to soup making. The season only changes the soup maker’s focus from the stock pot to the sauce pan and mixing bowl. My liberal definition of soup also includes sauces and dressings.
There is sauce to grace whatever comes off the grill and dressing to celebrate the seasonal harvest of fresh fruit and vegetables.
This dish features lemon marinated strips of grilled chicken, grilled green peppers and topped with a luxurious, lemony hollandaise sauce. It’s is a beautiful thing. Like all beautiful things it somehow feeds and nurtures the soul. To cook with thoughtfulness is to acknowledge, honor and celebrate that which is sacred in ordinary things. In this case it’s lemon juice, egg yolks, butter and pepper. Separately all these thing nourish the body. Carefully combined into a sauce they also nourish the soul.
Throughout ascent of the industrial economy, and now into the post-industrial economy (whatever that is by the way), sacredness is a quality we’ve slowly lost sight of. This is no small thing. For example, when marriage is viewed simply as a legal arrangement, it becomes an option. When seen as a sacred and fertile union, sealed not by a contract but a vow, it then is something different. It is holy.
Celebrating what is sacred in small thinks like cooking leads to a tasty sauce. In large things it is the cornerstone of human liberty and prosperity. This excerpt from Calvin Coolidge’s speech on July 5, 1926 is directly to the point. (full text)
“No other theory is adequate to explain or comprehend the Declaration of Independence. It is the product of the spiritual insight of the people. We live in an age of science and of abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create our Declaration. Our Declaration created them. The things of the spirit come first. Unless we cling to that, all our material prosperity, overwhelming though it may appear, will turn to a barren sceptre in our grasp. If we are to maintain the great heritage which has been bequeathed to us, we must be like-minded as the fathers who created it. We must not sink into a pagan materialism. We must cultivate the reverence which they had for the things that are holy. We must follow the spiritual and moral leadership which they showed. We must keep replenished, that they may glow with a more compelling flame, the altar fires before which they worshiped.”
It can be cultivated and nurtured in both the kitchen and garden where with a little work small miracles unfold before our eyes.
With that in mind we can consider hollandaise sauce and the wonder of combining egg yolks and oil. It’s the basis for the lemon pepper sauce outlined in the recipe below.
For lemon pepper chicken for four you will need.
Chicken ½ breasts cut into ¾ inch strips, two if from a large chick and four if they are small.
The juice and zest from 1 Large lemon reserve 2 tablespoons of the juice for the sauce.
¾ cup of Olive Oil
1 tsp pepper
3 Bell Peppers cut into eights
3 egg yokes
¼ cup melted butter
water
Combine ½ cup of olive oil, lemon zest, lemon juice and ½ teaspoon of pepper for the marinade. Marinade the chicken strips for at least one hour.
Combine ¼ cup of melted butter and ¼ cup of olive oil.
For the sauce: In a double boiler over steaming but not boiling water heat two tablespoons of lemon juice. Whisk in the egg yolks. As the egg yolks begin to thicken slowly whisk in a combination of melted butter and olive oil. Add ½ teaspoon of black pepper. When the sauce has thickened, remove from the head, add three tablespoons of water and cover.
Grill the chicken strips over a hot fire. Cover the grill as necessary to squelch the flames. Reserve to a warm oven. Grill the pepper until they are slightly blackened and soft. Reserve to a warm oven.
To serve gently reheat the sauce, add additional water if necessary, layer the peppers over the chicken and cover with the sauce. This dish is wonderful with a garlic herbed cuscus and asparagus gracing the plate.
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