Grilled Chicken and Peaches

The time had come to really cook something in my new Brooklyn kitchen.  It didn't have to be super-fancy or difficult, but it had to involve more steps than throwing hot dogs into the grill pan for the Fourth of July. But, since it is summer and I am deeply enamored with my grill pan, I wanted to make something in it.

Enter Bon Appétit.  I have a strange relationship with this magazine, since I want to dislike it because it replaced my Gourmet subscription after Gourmet went under, but it is simply TOO GOOD for me to maintain ill will.  Plus, the recipes are significantly more user-friendly than Gourmet's ever were.  Not that it means I will forgive Condé Nast for the death of Gourmet, but it softens the blow.

So, to make a long story short, I made one of the recipes out of Bon Appétit's July grilling issue and it was easy, tasty, and quick.  Now I'm going to share.

A quick note: For the apartment-bound without a grill, a grill pan is an amazing alternative.  Basically, it's a heavy cast-iron pan with grill-like ridges.  I have a Cuisinart model that was about $30 and it's one of the best investments I've made, kitchen-wise.  Cleaning it is a little bit of a trick, but a wet paper towel and some elbow grease will handily get off the caked-on burned stuff.

To the recipe!

Which I will also reconstruct here, with a few changes.  Thanks also to the New York Times' Mark Bittman, who inspired me that anyone can grill anything (and I do mean anything).

You'll need:

1/3 cup peach preserves (I used Smucker's and it turned out great.  No need to be fancy)
1/2 cup peach nectar
4 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
2 teaspoons adobo sauce from a can of chipotle chiles (Hurray for our local grocery carrying so many Hispanic products!)
2 tsp. extra-virgin olive oil, plus extra for brushing the pan
1 tsp. chopped cilantro, finely minced
3 large peaches, washed and cut into eighths
4 boneless chicken breasts (I used skinless)

Lightly cover the bottom of the grill pan with olive oil.

Combine peach preserves, nectar, vinegar, adobo sauce, olive oil, and cilantro in a bowl, mixing well.  You can season with salt and pepper, but I didn't.  Save a small amount of the sauce in a separate bowl.

Brush peaches with sauce, then put aside.  Then coat that chicken with the sauce!  And I mean really coat it.  Place in the grill pan on medium-high heat until cooked through, about 8–10 minutes per side.  You can continue basting the chicken with marinade as it cooks, if you are so inclined (I was).  You should cut into the chicken toward the end to make sure it's cooked.  Uncooked chicken is GROSS and unsafe and far too easy to accidentally achieve.  So please check.

As the chicken finishes grilling, add the peaches to the grill pan.  You can use that extra reserved non-raw-chicken-y sauce to baste them some more.  They take about 3 minutes per side to grill to a soft perfection.

Remove from the grill and serve!  This recipe takes about 30 minutes (no joke) and makes enough for 4 (or four meals for one person, as the case may be).  I think it would be good with brown rice, but I wasn't feeling starches yesterday, so I just ate it like this:

As you can see, I forgot to take a photo until after I started eating it.  I was that excited and it was that delicious.

Happy grilling!