Tequila Lime Chicken - no Home Run

[Hopz]

O.K., I read all the comments about Tequila Lime Chicken. I made it yesterday. Followed the directions explicitly, except only 5 hour marinade, as per some comments about long marinade making chicken tough.

Used a great tequila, Porfidio Anejo, fresh limes, fresh jalapeno pepper, fresh oj.

It was only Ho-Hum...nothing special, not very much flavor.

Any thoughts from all you TLC fans.

OBTW total of 15 minutes cooking seems waaay too little to me, and to my digital thermometer...

[QSis]

Yeah, Hopz, I made it last week and didn't care for it either. I added the zest of the fruit so it did have plenty of flavor; I'm just not a huge fan of that much citrus, especially the juice of sweet oranges, in savory dishes. Shoulda known better. :-)

Lee

[Toots]

I made this recipe two summers ago and I was non-plussed as well. It was not as good as I thought it would be and a waste of good tequila to boot!

I think the Barefoot Contessa has good recipes, I just didnt care for this one.

[kitchenelf]

I've had great tequila lime chicken at an Applebee's before but it was smothered with monteray jack cheese and spring onions

Yes, some of those citrus marinads are way too subtle for me too.

[ironchef]

Could it have possibly been that the dish was undersalted? Many citrus and/or alcohol based sauces, vinaigrettes, marinades, etc. need more salt than maybe what would be considered "normal", in order to bring out and enhance all of the flavors.

[SizzlininIN]

Sorry but we really enjoy this recipe. However, we added shredded mexican cheese on top with crumbled, fried bacon and green scallions. I also change up this recipe and use what I have as far a citrus' available. I love the citrus flavor with the hint of tequilla. I use Jose' Quervo (?spelling). Sometimes I make it without the tequilla.

Sorry you didn't enjoy it.

[Hopz]

It's not that we didn't enjoy it. It is just that we thought it did not live up to its billing.
I had 3 TLC breasts left over. I de-boned them all, and diced the meat. Made an Aoli, heavy on the garlic, added roasted red peppers and black olives, served it over linguini pasta. Pretty tasty.

[QSis]

Sizzlin, I'm glad you mentioned in your original post that you topped the chicken with shredded mexican cheese, green onion and fried bacon. We did that and it was the best part! :-)

Lee

[Gretchen]

And no need to use a big expensive tequila for sure.

[college_cook]

I've always felt that tequila and lime flavors really complemented each very well in Mexican cooking, but I think it would be easy to use to much lime juice/zest in a recipe. I usually just eyeball my own ingredient amounts when I cook, but I'm going to go search for the thread everyone is speaking about and see if I can find tricky steps that might cause the recipe go wrong.