Blackened Chicken

I am a HUGE fan of blackened chicken.  Whenever I see it on a menu, I have to order it, usually with a salad.  I always eat the chicken first, and then nibble on the greens.  For my husband's birthday this year, we decided to stay in and cook together versus going out to dinner.  We found this recipe and decided to give it a try.  Before tonight, a fire had never occurred in my kitchen.  Do NOT use cooking spray on the hot pan with this one.  My husband thought it would be a good idea so that the chicken did not stick too much to the pan.  He is the one doing the dishes, so he was trying to save himself some work.  I agreed, so he sprayed the pan.  WOW...fire.  Thank goodness it went out quickly.  It took a long time to try to clean the pan.  I'm afraid it will never be the same :-(  Anyway, I bought hearty breasts which took longer than 5 minutes to cook.  Once the 5 minutes were up, I kept adding time in 2 minute increments until I felt the chicken was sufficiently cooked.  It turned out really moist on the inside, but we had to cut off the outside in order for it to be edible.  I hope others can learn the lesson we did today without ruining a good frying pan.

We paired the blackened chicken with onion rings from our favorite Sandwich King, Jeff Mauro.  We made the chicken and then the onion rings.  Don't do that.  Make the onion rings ahead of time, cook the chicken, then let the chicken rest while the onion rings are cooking.  The onion rings took a little longer than expected.  I struggled to keep the chicken warm while the onion rings were being made.  The onion rings turned out great, though a little salty for my taste.  I would definitely make these again.  They do not need any dipping sauce what-so-ever.  I was prepared to dip in horseradish or some sort of hot sauce, but did not even get the sauces out once I tried one.  I have never attempted onion rings before and I don't think I'll use a different recipe.  Thanks, sandwich king!