Hot honey chicken and a proper mash

Name: Hot honey chicken and a proper mash
Total time: 40 min
Yield: 2 servings
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts; 1 ½ lb potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks; 4 carrots, halved crosswise and quartered lengthwise; 2 scallions, thinly sliced; 3 tbsp salted butter; ¼ cup heavy cream; 2 tbsp honey; 1 tbsp hot sauce; ¼ cup full-fat Greek yogurt; 1 tsp smoked paprika; garlic powder, onion powder, olive oil, salt, pepper

The honey goes in with the heat off. On a hot pan it turns bitter in about the time it takes to notice.

At a Glance

Time

40 min

Adjust servings

Story

Honey is mostly fructose, and fructose starts browning at a far lower temperature than the sugar in a caramel does. Tipped into a hot pan it goes from sweet to acrid in seconds, well before anything else in the dish has noticed, and there is no walking it back. So the pan comes off the heat first and the honey goes in second, into fat and fond that are still hot enough to loosen it and no longer hot enough to ruin it. The same rule governs every honey glaze anyone has ever burnt.

Ingredients

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 ½ lb potatoespeeled and cut into chunks
4 carrotshalved crosswise and quartered lengthwise
2 scallionsthinly sliced
3 tbsp salted butter
¼ cup heavy cream
2 tbsp honey
1 tbsp hot sauce
¼ cup full-fat Greek yogurt
1 tsp smoked paprika
garlic powderonion powder, olive oil, salt, pepper

Method

There is no cleverness in this one and that is the appeal. A seared breast, a sweet-hot pan sauce, roast carrots and mash you have not skimped on.

Oven to 450F. Carrots on a tray with oil, salt and pepper, 16 to 20 minutes, until the edges go dark.
Potatoes into cold salted water, brought up to a boil, then 15 to 18 minutes until a knife slides through with no argument. Drain, then leave them a minute in the hot pan to steam dry.
Mash them with 2 tbsp butter and the cream, seasoned hard. Stop as soon as they come together. A potato holds enough starch to turn to glue, and beating it does exactly that.
Season the chicken with salt, pepper, the paprika and a pinch each of garlic and onion powder. Hot pan, oil, 5 to 7 minutes a side depending on thickness, until 165F. Onto a board.
Take the pan off the heat. Give it ten seconds. Then the honey, the hot sauce, the last of the butter and a splash of water, stirred hard, until the base is clean and the sauce is glossy. If it looks thin, back on the lowest flame for thirty seconds, no more.
Sliced chicken over the mash, the sauce poured across it, carrots alongside, yogurt in a dollop and the scallions thrown over.