Buttermilk-Grilled Chicken with Garden Vegetable Salsa

Are you always looking for ways to use up your leftover buttermilk like I am?  Lucky for you I have a buttermilk tag on my blog just for this exact purpose!  Of course, you could always "cheat" and make fake buttermilk by adding 1 tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice to a regular cup of milk and letting it sit for 5 minutes.  This makes it get a bit curdled and sour just like buttermilk.  It works in a pinch but for me, I like the real thing so I buy the jug of buttermilk at the store.

My CSA continues to churn out lots of wonderful garden-fresh veggies and so when I saw this on Josie's blog, I knew it would make the menu sometime this Summer.  Finally the stars aligned and the farm supplied all of the vegetables that I needed to make this recipe (even the mashed potatoes which I made as a "bed" for the chicken and veggies to rest upon).  I gathered some fresh herbs from our work garden and happened to have some buttermilk leftover from when I had made Tomato and Corn Pie (still easily the best dish from the Summer!) and Strawberry Buttermilk Ice Cream.  Perfect.

I've heard of using buttermilk for fried chicken before but never grilled so the concept was intriguing to me.  I found that allowing the chicken to marinate overnight in the buttermilk mixture resulted in meat so juicy and tender after grilling that I about died of happiness.

As a side note, this is my last month of my CSA subscription :(.  But, to preserve some of the fresh flavors of summer, I took on canning 60 POUNDS of tomatoes with my mother-in-law.  I'll post soon about that adventure so stay tuned!

One Year Ago: Oven Baked Sweet Potato Chips

Buttermilk-Grilled Chicken with Garden Vegetable Salsa

Ingredients

For the Chicken

• 4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, trimmed
• 2 cups low-fat buttermilk
• 3 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
• 1/2 tsp paprika
• 1/8 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper

For the Garden Salsa

• 1/2 cup finely diced cucumber
• 1/2 cup finely diced bell pepper
• 1/2 cup minced scallions
• 3/4 cup corn, cut from the cob (about 1-2 ears)
• 2 medium tomatoes, cored, seeded, and diced
• 1/4 cup minced fresh herbs (such as basil, chives, oregano, and parsley)
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 2 Tbsp red wine vinegar
• Juice of 1/2 lemon
• Salt and pepper, to taste

Directions

1. In a gallon-sized ziplock bag or shallow baking dish, combine the chicken with the buttermilk, garlic, and spices.  Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour or up to overnight.
2. When ready to cook, preheat the grill to medium-high heat.  Oil the grates and cook the chicken about 7 minutes per side, turning once, or until the internal temperature reaches 165F.  Remove from the heat and cover loosely with foil.  Allow to rest at room temperature about 10 minutes before serving.
3. While the chicken is cooking, combine the ingredients for the salsa in a medium bowl.  Taste and season with salt and pepper before serving on top of chicken.

Source: Pink Parsley