Good morning everyone!

Happy middle of the Memorial Day weekend. It’s our turn for the extra day off dammit.

What is everyone doing over this weekend?

Drinking?

I already knew that. How about grilling?

There we go.

I’m a little worried that my grand ambition of grilling both on Sunday AND Monday this weekend might be in for a meteorological challenge today since this has been one weird-ass Spring out here in L.A. No shit, we are STILL getting rain. Usually our rain chances stop in March or so and don’t return until the following December but shit done got weird this year.

Us locals are totally fucking fine with extra rain since it holds off that fire shit that none of us really care to discuss out loud.

I may just say “fuck it” and grill between the raindrops today.

A few weeks ago one of our esteemed colleagues Mr. Balls of Steel and Fury made a casual mention to me that he had been perusing the Sunday Gravy archives and noticed a certain, shall we say “dearth” of chicken marinade recipes.

While I have done a few, Balls is correct. We need a serious collection of marinades since I KNOW all of you fine folks are always looking for more health-conscious ways to grill.

Aren’t you?

Let’s give a quick breakdown of what we have done in the past.

That rather confusing photo is from the time we made grilled chicken shawarma. A right tasty bastard indeed.

That plate of goodness is from when we made chipotle grilled chicken with grilled shrimp and pineapple habanero salsa. It was also pre-evolution of my food photo skills. How fucking quaint.

This motherfucker here…

Is from the WAY back machine. That’s grilled chicken za’atar that was introduced to me by Sarah back on the Mother blog a few years back. Still one of my absolute favorite things ever.

/don’t tell anyone but I’m currently tinkering with a variation on that marinade that may see the light of day soon.

Here’s a link for grilled Peruvian chicken that I don’t have any original photos for (there may have been substances involved with that) that was none-the-less quite delicious.

We’ve also discussed brining multiple times but that’s technically not a marinade although it does produce delicious goddamn results.

See that photo of the Spanish style rice there? We’ll get back to that shortly.

While the previous recipes may have leaned a bit to the exotic with their “shawarmas” and their “Za’atars” and their “chipotles” how about we do a fairly simple strait-forward do it yourself at goddamn home marinade?

How about we make some tequila lime chicken.

And while we’re at it, let’s make some homemade Spanish style rice and a big ass pot of homemade ranchero style beans, all from scratch.

This is a bit of fortuitous symmetry, since on Friday our good friend Sharkbait started us off with a recipe for a Margarita using tequila of course.

Sometimes fate smiles on all of our righteous asses

Yeah, let’s do that shit. Here we go!

Tequila Lime Marinade!

3 tablespoons of olive oil

1/4 cup of tequila

1/4 cup of fresh squeezed lime juice – about 3 limes worth

1 shot of triple sec

Zest of 2 limes

1 jalapeno – seeded and sliced

4 green onions chopped – white and green parts

5 cloves of garlic – minced

1 1/4 teaspoons of salt

1/2 teaspoon of black pepper

1/2 teaspoon of coriander

1/2 teaspoon of dried oregano

1 1/4 teaspoons of chili powder

1 1/4 teaspoon of cumin

2 tablespoons of honey.

There was about 3 1/2 pounds of chicken that got marinated – boneless skinless breasts and thighs

There are two parts to this dish, the first is the marinade and the second will be a glaze that we will baste the chicken with as it cooks. This is the first part.

Let’s address the obvious first.

You know you want to. Go ahead.

This is a simple marinade despite the lengthy list of ingredients. Slap it together, bag it up and refrigerate overnight. Once in the fridge go ahead and take your tequila shot.

I don’t recommend this shot however.

Not near as tasty.

For this episode of Sunday Gravy I took a shitload of photos as I went so, yay! Pictures!

Here’s one!

This is actually a very helpful kitchen trick for de-seeding jalapenos. Slice off the stem, then using a basic spoon scrape out the seeds and the veins. Slice to preference.

Neat!

Combine the marinade ingredients in a bowl.

Place the chicken into a one gallon zip top freezer bag and pour the marinade over the chicken. Try to squeeze out as much of the air from the bag as you can, then seal the bag and squish around the chicken and marinade to coat the chicken evenly.

Place the bag into a large bowl, to avoid spillage don’t you know, and place in your refrigerator overnight.

Now.

Let’s discuss something.

This. Needs. To. Be. GRILLED!

Did I get to grill this?

No. I fucking did not. That little diatribe I went on at the top of this post about the weather was for a reason. We had shitty weather the day I was cooking this. Pretty much arrived out of the fucking blue too.

I was forced to cook in the oven since the chicken was all marinaded up and ready for action.

This needs to be grilled.

Tequila Lime Glaze!

3/4 cup of pineapple juice

1/3 cup of tequila

3 tablespoons of honey

2 teaspoons of lime rind

3 tablespoons of fresh squeezed lime juice

1/2 teaspoon of red pepper flake

Cornstarch slurry:

2 teaspoons of cornstarch

2 teaspoons of water

Combine.

 

First thing is to juice and zest the lime.

Combine the pineapple juice, tequila and honey in a bowl and mix well.

Go ahead and make that slurry while you’re at it.

Bring the pineapple, tequila and honey to a quick boil in a small sauce pan.

We want to reduce this by about half. Lower your heat until the glaze is at a gentle boil and cook for about 10 minutes or so to thicken. Next we will add in the cornstarch slurry. Increase the heat to medium-high and cook for 1 minute stirring constantly. It will thicken the glaze to a nice baste-ready consistency.

Remove the pan from the heat and let cool.

Next add in the lime juice, lime zest and red pepper flake to the glaze, mix and let cool completely.

If you want to make this a day ahead, knock yourself the fuck out. That’s what I did since the profiles of the marinade and glaze are so similar.

Place the glaze into a container.

Then refrigerate until ready to use.

Next day, remove the bag-o-chicken from the refrigerator and let come to room temperature before cooking.

If you were grilling WHICH YOU REALLY SHOULD cook the chicken for 5-7 minutes on the grill, turn the chicken over and baste with the glaze. Repeat for the 2nd side.

If the rain was being a real dick then you can cook in the oven.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Since the recipe has honey and pineapple juice etc. in it I decided to use the old standby disposable aluminum pans. This can get sticky.

Spray the pans with some non-stick cooking spray and add in the chicken.

Give a little baste of the glaze and cook in the oven for 15-17 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven, turn over each piece of chicken, baste with the glaze again and return to the oven to cook for an additional 15 minutes.

When done, remove the pan from the oven to cool a bit.

And we’re ready to serve with your choice of sides.

Goddammit. Do you know how much sexier this would have been with some nice char marks and that hit of charcoal that grilling would have added?

Yes, it was still very tasty but screamingly monochromatic. It was very delicious but it kills me that it could have been that much better on the grill.

I’ll stop harping on this now.

Fuck it let’s do two homemade sides for this baby.

Ranchero/Pinto/Pseudo-Refried beans!

(1) 1 pound bag of dried pinto beans

1 medium onion chopped

4 cloves of garlic minced

4-5 dried chile de arbol

1/2 tablespoon of cumin

1/2 tablespoon of chili powder

1/2 tablespoon of salt

Bunch of grinds of black pepper

Bacon fat from 4-5 slices of cooked bacon

About 6 cups of water.

I’m pretty sure this is the first time I’ve posted this recipe despite the fact that I’ve been making this shit for over 30 years. It’s fucking killer.

First rinse and sort them beans.

Add everything except the bacon/bacon fat to the pot and get it to simmering.

When the beans start to simmer, place a lid that is slightly ajar over the top, decrease the heat to very low and simmer for about 2 1/2 to 3 hours.

When the beans are tender we will cook the bacon.

You already know how to cook bacon. Just cook the bacon until you’ve rendered out the fat. Remove the bacon from the pan and keep that damn grease!

Once the grease has cooled, pour it right over the cooking beans.

Fuck yes I did.

The bacon is yours to do with as you wish. It probably won’t last very long.

Let the bacon grease mingle with the beans and cook for about 20 more minutes.

When the beans are tender, rich and delicious, adjust the salt and pepper if needed. You can choose to remove or leave in the chile de arbol pods at this point. Then it’s time to break out the hardware!

We’re going to blend these frijoles to about a 50/50 whole bean vs mashed bean ratio. If you don’t have a stick blender just ladle out a big bunch of the beans to a large bowl and use a potato masher or mashing device of choice. I would avoid the blender since the whole “very hot food whirling around in circles at a high rate of speed” shit. Mix the mashed beans with the whole beans.

Fuck yeah.

Know what I did?

I made these beans the day ahead along with the marinade and glaze for the chicken and reheated them the next day.

That first night they were done? Motherfucking bean and cheese burrito!

I fucking love the hell out of these beans.

Now for that rice, that we’ve made before.

To the copy and paste machine we go!

Mexican Rice.

1 cup of long grain rice. I used some jasmine rice since I still had some on hand.

1 small onion minced.

3 cloves of garlic minced.

4 ounces of tomato sauce.

1 3/4 cups of chicken stock.

1 teaspoon of cumin – freshly toasted and ground if you can.

1 teaspoon of chili powder.

1/2 teaspoon of turmeric – this gives the rice a really nice color and is cheaper than saffron.

1 tablespoon of oil – whatever you have on hand. Olive oil is nice here.

Some salt and pepper to taste.

Like this.

You know the drill, saute the onion along with the rice in the oil.

Cook for about 5 minutes or so, add in the rest of the ingredients, give a stir or two, reduce heat to VERY low and simmer for 20-23 minutes until rice is tender.

Boosh!

Get out a plate, scoop some rice, scoop up some of those damn tasty beans, get a piece or two of the chicken. Feel like throwing some salsa or chile over everything? Get some! Want to add some cheese over those beans? I knew I liked you for a reason.

Hell, pour yourself another shot of tequila while you’re at it.

Served!

The chicken has a sweet and tart yin/yang going on. That tequila is right there front and center too. The glaze makes this a little sticky and very savory. Those rice and beans really should get into your regular rotation too.

I grabbed a tortilla or 2 or 3, slathered on my chile tepin and threw the fuck DOWN.

There you go Mr. Balls. New marinade by request.

This would be a lovely protein for a summer barbecue. Make the marinade, bag and refrigerate it with the chicken. Make that glaze and when you go to the cookout bring the chicken along, bag and all, along with the glaze and prepare to wow some damn minds.

After cooking this over a fire.

I appreciate you good folks.

Truly do.

On this Memorial Day please take a moment to remember the brave men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice and died performing their duty to this country so we could enjoy days like these.

I will remember.

Have a great weekend folks.

PEACE!