Pineapple Soy Sauce Chicken

Sometimes the weather gives you an inch and all you want is a mile. The weather just barely warmed up here and I immediately craved the tropics.

A while back I had some chicken breast with mango salsa at Pizzeria Uno's and it was a surprisingly simple and delicious meal. I thought I'd try to replicate it at home, but didn't even know where to begin so I took some elements of this recipe and this recipe. And so I present: Pineapple Soy Sauce Chicken with Mango Mojito Salad.

So I felt really cocky that I could cut my mango without one of those fancy schmancy mango cutters. You slice in half, then score the mango like a checkerboard. But that was a little harder than it looks in my cookbook; the mango was very soft and got mushy fast.

Then you flip it inside out. Your eyes do not deceive you. This is the most fun thing ever.

Then you proceed to cut the mango cubes off the skin, somehow not cutting your own skin in the process.

Meanwhile I started prepping my marinade for my chicken: 2 cups of pineapple juice, a tablespoon and a teaspoon of soy sauce, some salt and some Mrs. Dash.

For the mango salad, I combined the mango pieces with red onion, the juice of half a lime, red pepper flakes and some salt. This is where I was supposed to add mint leaves, but my dearly beloved mistook parsley for mint leaves.

I thought maybe I could add a drop of peppermint extract to make up for the lack of fresh mint. Don't do that. It's super dumb and makes your tongue tingly.

Anyways, I added the soy sauce to my pineapple juice.

And let the chicken soak for about 25 minutes.

Then I fried it up and it got a nice, sugary glaze.

Finally, I served the chicken on a bed of rice with the mango salad.

So how was it? It was...okay. A little sweet for my taste, which could have been helped if I added the recommended cucumber (I never buy cucumber because I never eat it fast enough before it goes bad). The chicken was really good, though, so I recommend it.