First Attempt To Duplicate Versailles #6 With No Rice

I'm embarrassed to show this chicken but when I began this blog I committed to putting it all out there, bad chicken and all. The goal was to create a meal that rivaled our addiction to Versailles lemon garlic roasted chicken with black beans and fried plantains. I made roasted chicken in a garlic lemon sauce, black beans and pan-fried bananas. Here are the recipes:

Roasted chicken
1 chicken
1 Tablespoon olive oil
zest of 2 lemons
juice of 1 lemon
1 lemon sliced
5 cloves garlic, peeled and quartered
1 medium onion, chopped
2 Tablespoons soy sauce

Wash and pat dry chicken. Loosen skin and stuff randomly with garlic and sliced lemon.

In a separate bowl, combine oil, zest, juice, onion and soy sauce. Rub and pour the mixture over chicken. Bake at 425 degrees until internal temp is 165 degrees.

Black Beans

1/2 lb dried black beans, washed and sorted
6 cups good chicken stock
2 cloves garlic
1 bay leaf
2 Tablespoons red wine vinegar (less or more, to taste. I love me some vinegar)

Combine in a pot and cook until beans are soft, 1 1/2-2 hours. Add vinegar 20 mins before beans are done.

Pan-fried Banana

2 bananas, sliced lengthwise
2 Tablespoons light butter
cinnamon

Heat butter in frying pan until bubbly. Add cinnamon and banana slices. Let fry for at least 2-3 minutes to get nice coating. Flip, repeat. Can be held on low flame until you're ready to plate.




The problem? Chicken was too big for the roasting pan. I need to have a bigger pot AND have the chicken on a rack so it would brown evenly. We just ate the parts with crispy skin and a shredded the rest to be used for chicken salad. I also combined some of the chicken with the VERY yummy lemon sauce with the black beans and froze it in individual portions; kind of like a Cuban chicken chili.