Pineapple Jalapeno Chicken

In addition to the great guest posts he does for Food Junta, Chris is a music journalist, writer, photographer, and Rolling Stone Intern. You can read his music writing over at The Stu Reid Experiment or keep up with all his escapades by following him on Twitter.

One of the greatest accomplishments of my adult life has been learning to love spicy foods. I grew up not eating too much spice – mine wasn’t a boiled potatoes household, but neither was it a Szechuan one. It’s been a long road, but I’m finally to the point where I legitimately enjoy spicy foods – I love Sriracha, put hot sauce on my tacos, and don’t shy away from the curries.

That being said, sometimes I do like to cut my spice with some sweet. Having both flavors in a dish is a nice balance on the tongue, and it really highlights the flavor of a spice rather than just the sting. So you can imagine my excitement when I set eyes on a recipe for Pineapple-Glazed Chicken with Jalapeño Salsa. The original recipe is from Bon Appétit, but I gave it some twists – both intentional and unintentional – to make it my own.

The recipe starts out with 2 chicken breasts. Or four. See if I care. I went with skinless, because that’s how I roll. This was no naked chicken, though; despite being bought in its birthday suit, this chicken was about to wear the delicious cape of a pineapple mustard glaze.

Pineapple Mustard Glaze:

¼ C pineapple juice
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp habañero mustard

Monsieur Appétit recommends making this glaze with a yellow mustard base, but I switched that up for some Habañero mustard, which added some extra zip that I quite liked. I used the leftover juice from the sliced pineapple for the salsa (read on, fair reader!) and mixed in a couple teaspoons of brown sugar for a nice sweet/spicy blend. After bringing that mixture to a boil, I threw in a little salt and pepper and let it thicken to a nice glaze. Then I doused the chicken in it.

I baked the chicken in the oven on a baking sheet covered with aluminum foil at 400 degrees for fifteen minutes. After fifteen minutes I took the breasts out, applied some more glaze, and popped them back in for another 5-7 minutes, checking to make sure they were done all the way through. Voila. Chicken is ready to go.

Now the fun and colorful part. The salsa.

Pineapple Jalapeño Salsa

¾ C cubes fresh pineapple
3 tbsp diced bell pepper (orange looks good)
3 tbsp chopped fresh cilantro
1 ½ tablespoons chopped red onion
1 ½ tablespoons canned sliced jalapeño chiles, drained, coarsely chopped

Making salsa is pretty much the easiest thing in the world. You chop up a bunch of ingredients, mix them around in a bowl, and then say, “This looks awesome.” Those are the steps I usually follow, anyway. So that’s what I did with these ingredients, to make a really tasty, chunky-not-soggy salsa.

THIS IS THE PART WHERE I TELL YOU THAT I BOUGHT PARSLEY INSTEAD OF CILANTRO BY ACCIDENT. Oh man. What an embarrassing rookie mistake. I am officially a joker. Needless to say, the salsa had a fair amount of parsley taste rather than the perhaps more germane flavor of cilantro. But some people think cilantro tastes like soap, so maybe I’ve just stumbled upon a good alternative. Because know this: it was still absolutely delicious.

This salsa would go really well on any meat, really. I’m looking forward to trying it on salmon. It’s great for summertime, go whip up a batch! I dumped a generous helping of the pineapple salsa onto my chicken, and dug in.