Give your chicken a flavor boost with this paleo lemon chicken with mint gremolata and bacon. It's fancy enough for a holiday meal, but easy enough for a weekday dinner. This recipe is paleo, dairy free, and gluten-free.

One of my favorite cookbooks isn't a cookbook at all, or at least not in the traditional sense. It's called The Flavor Bible and it's simply a listing of ingredients. It tells you what seasonings, herbs, and spices go with which ingredients. So I was super excited to hear that Karen Page, one of the authors of Flavor Bible, has written a new book called Kitchen Creativity. The book was the inspiration for today's recipe for paleo lemon chicken with mint gremolata and bacon.

Like The Flavor Bible, Kitchen Creativity is not a typical cookbook with recipes. Rather, the book is for someone who already knows their way around a kitchen, but wants some added inspiration to create some new and exciting dishes.

The book features over 100 top chefs around the world and how they foster creativity in the dishes they prepare in their restaurants. It's a three-part book that begins with a section on Mastery. Famed Italian chef Massimo Bottura sums things up by saying, "You need classic technique. You need to know everything, then forget everything." It's the old mantra that you need to know the rules before you break them. 

Part two talks about alchemy, or the combining of ingredients for the perfect dish. The final part speaks to creativity and making a recipe your own. I spent the most time with the Alchemy pages as it goes into specifics about flavor and taste like this:

Flavor = Taste + Mouthfeel + Aroma + The X Factor
Taste = Salty and Sour (Acidity) + Sweet + Bitter + Umami (Savory)

I used this equation to create today's recipe for paleo lemon chicken with mint gremolata and bacon. Chicken is kind of boring on its own right? So it needs all of those items in the Taste category to make an interesting dish. I added bacon for the saltiness as well as that savory umami. Lemon gets the acidity going and the mint gremolata ticks off sweet and bitter.

I feel like bacon could carry the whole flavor equation, but the mint gremolata also brings an X factor, as well as a different mouthfeel and aroma. There are lots of examples of all the flavor profiles in the book, so you know exactly what to add for umami or sweetness.

I look forward to using this book as my added recipe inspiration for many meals to come!

Paleo Lemon Chicken with Mint Gremolata and Bacon {Gluten Free, Dairy Free}

Serves 4

Ingredients

• 4 slices of pastured pork paleo bacon (I use this)

• 4 organic boneless chicken thighs (about one pound)

• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Mint Gremolata

• 1 cup fresh mint, stems removed

• 2 small garlic cloves

• Juice and zest from one organic lemon

• 2 anchovy fillets (I love these)

• 2 tablespoons toasted pine nuts

• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

• Salt to taste

Instructions

1. Cut the bacon into chunks and cook over medium heat. Once cooked through, remove the bacon from the pan, but keep the drippings. Season the chicken with salt and pepper, and then add the chicken to the pan and cook until opaque. Once the chicken is cooked through, drizzle the lemon juice on top.

2. While the chicken cooks, make the mint gremolata. Place the mint, garlic, lemon juice and zest, anchovies, pine nuts, and olive oil in a food processor. Pulse the mixture in short bursts until it's combined. I like to stop short of a full puree. Season with salt and pepper.

3. Serve the chicken with the mint gremolata, topped with the bacon pieces.

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I received a copy of Kitchen Creativity for review, but all opinions are my own.

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