Mayo-Marinated Chicken With Chimichurri

Mayo-Marinated Chicken With Chimichurri

If the idea of rubbing chicken cutlets with mayo before grilling them leaves you cold, I relate — I felt the same way until I tried it. Now I use mayonnaise as the base for nearly every marinade I use, whether I’m cooking on the grill or in a cast-iron skillet indoors. The magic of mayo is that it helps your other marinade ingredients spread evenly across the surface of the meat, delivering more consistent flavor, while improving browning. (Don’t worry, the cooked meat doesn’t taste like mayo.) In this recipe, that means chicken cutlets that cook through and brown in about four minutes, with deep chimichurri flavor enhanced by a post-grill drizzle of fresh sauce. This recipe will work with nearly any marinade, exactly as written: You could use pesto, salsa verde, bottled barbecue sauce, jarred Thai curry paste, teriyaki sauce or mole, all with equal success.

Yield: 2 to 4 servings

4 chicken breast cutlets (4 to 5 ounces each), pounded about ¼-inch thick

Kosher salt and ground black pepper

⅓ cup store-bought or homemade mayonnaise

1 cup chimichurri (see below)

Season chicken cutlets on both sides with salt and pepper and set aside.

Whisk together mayonnaise and ¼ cup chimichurri in a large bowl. Reserve remaining chimichurri. Add chicken cutlets to the mixture and turn to coat. Cook immediately, or for better flavor, transfer to a sealed container and refrigerate for 4 to 24 hours.

To cook on the grill: Heat a gas or charcoal grill over high heat for 10 minutes. Cook chicken cutlets directly over high heat, turning and flipping occasionally, until just cooked through and lightly charred all over, about 4 to 5 minutes. Transfer chicken to a serving platter. Spoon some of the remaining chimichurri over the chicken and serve the rest in a small bowl on the side.

To cook in a skillet: Heat a large (12-inch) cast-iron or nonstick skillet over medium-high heat until a drop of water immediately balls up and dances across the surface. Add chicken cutlets in a single layer and cook, swirling them and flipping them occasionally until browned all over and just cooked through, about 4 minutes. Transfer chicken to a serving platter. Spoon some of the remaining chimichurri over the chicken and serve the rest in a small bowl on the side.

Chimichurri

Chimichurri is a herbaceous and vinegary sauce from Argentina that’s classically paired with grilled meats, especially beef, but its uses don't end there. You can combine it with a dollop of mayonnaise to marinate chicken cutlets. (That same mayo-and-chimichurri mixture makes an excellent potato salad dressing, or toss it with sliced scallions and grilled or boiled corn cut from the cob.) Combine chimichurri with equal parts olive oil to use as a marinade and dressing for grilled vegetables. Add a few crushed cloves of garlic to that same mixture, brush it on a split ciabatta or baguette, and grill or broil it for an oregano-packed take on garlic bread. It may be tempting to think of a chimichurri as a sort of Argentine parallel to Italian pesto, but it is not: While pesto is made in a mortar and pestle and emulsified into a creamy mixture with a base mostly comprised of olive oil, chimichurri is made with chopped dried herbs that are steeped in hot salty water (the brine is called salmuera) and vinegar, with less olive oil added. Its texture comes from the dried herbs rehydrating in salt water. Chimichurri can be stored in the refrigerator for several weeks; it will lose its bright green color, but it will improve in flavor with time.

Yield: About 1 cup

¼ cup dried oregano

1 teaspoon sweet paprika

½ teaspoon red-pepper flakes (more or less to taste)

½ teaspoon ground cumin (optional)

½ cup hot water

Kosher salt

¼ cup red wine vinegar

8 medium garlic cloves

2 tablespoons olive oil (it need not be extra-virgin, but it can be), plus more as needed

¼ cup fresh oregano leaves, finely minced

1 tightly packed cup fresh parsley leaves, finely minced

Ground black pepper

Combine dried oregano, paprika, red-pepper flakes and cumin, if using, in a large bowl. Add hot water and a big pinch of salt and stir with a fork. Add vinegar and stir to combine.

Smash garlic with a pinch of salt in a mortar and pestle to form a rough paste, then drizzle in about 2 tablespoons of olive oil and work the garlic and oil around the mortar until it emulsifies and no loose oil remains. Scrape this garlic mixture into the bowl with the oregano mixture and stir to combine. (Alternatively, smash garlic cloves on a cutting board with the flat side of a chef’s knife. Sprinkle with a pinch of kosher salt, then use the side of your knife to scrape the mixture back and forth until a paste forms. Drizzle a little olive oil over the paste and work it in with the side of the knife. Repeat until you’ve added about a tablespoon of olive oil, then scrape the mixture up and transfer it to the bowl with the oregano mixture, add the remaining olive oil, and stir to combine.)

Add minced fresh oregano and parsley and stir to combine. Set aside at room temperature for at least 30 minutes, or in the refrigerator overnight, to allow the dried oregano to rehydrate and the flavors and texture to develop. Stir vigorously before tasting, then adjust seasoning with salt and fresh black pepper. Unused chimichurri can be stored in a sealed container in the refrigerator for several weeks.

TIP: A variation I love is blending 1 tbs of garlic paste and 1 tbs of mushroom powder into 1/4 cup mayo. It's amazing on almost any meat or fish.

When a grill is not available it makes 6oz filet mignon steaks done in my cast iron skillet come out perfectly medium rare, with a beautiful and delicious note of crust that doesn't require overcooking.

*Tony R-If you like Indian flavors, it can get even simpler. Buy masala from any Indian store (I prefer one of the the Shaan kabab mixes for this). Mix the masala with mayo (adjust based on preferred spice level), slather it on the meat and bake. This works best for thinner portions of meat. Lamb or goat chops work well. Use a thermometer to control doneness. You can throw in some veggies into the pan as well. Elegant family dinner in 20.

*Hi Maggie, I tried Tony R’s suggestion and it is a delicious favorite now! I used 8 boneless chicken thighs, 1 cup avocado oil mayonnaise (any mayo will work, this is what I had), Two heaping tablespoons Masala, couple of grinds of black pepper and a pinch of salt. Mixed this together in a bowl, coat each individual chick thigh with mixture and blobbed the rest on top when they were all coated. Baked in a 16” enamel covered cast iron Paella pan at 425 degrees for twenty minutes. YUM!

CHIMICHURRI:

The oddest chimichurri recipe I’ve seen. This is my go/to recipe:

1 bunch cilantro chopped fine

1 bunch parsley chopped fine

6-8 garlic cloves minced

1 jalapeño without seeds minced

half a white or red onion minced

Olive oil til herbs are covered

2-3 glugs/splashes of vinegar. Enough to make the herbs look wet.

Then salt, I’d start with one table spoon then go tsp at a time, same w/ fresh ground pepper, maybe 1 tablespoon of cumin and dried oregano, I’ve put coriander before.

Always a hit!

*Followed the recipe to a T and quadruple-checked the steps and proportions after finding it *completely* inedible as written. (I normally *love* Kenji's recipes!) Did so much doctoring--mostly adding a ton of olive oil and more fresh parsley to mellow it out--and was able to get it to a good place but am left baffled by this!

...a little snooping reveals really different ratios by this same author on other sites. Less garlic, less dried oregano. Maybe this one's a mistake.

*Interesting... Steak with chimichurri is a go-to Sunday dinner with my family, but we make chimichurri with cilantro, not oregano. And to Grandmadoc's question, yes, we use the food processor too! But I'm psyched to proposed the mayo twist to my sister and watch her face.