Email this Recipe  French in a Flash  French in a Flash:
Tapenade Baked Chicken  French in a Flash: Tapenade Baked
Chicken  [Photograph: Kerry Saretsky]  Lately I've become
obsessed with one cooking shortcut: using spreads or sauces that
I can buy premade and repurposing them as cooking agents. Last
week, I baked fish in pesto. And this week, it's chicken in
tapenade.  Think of chicken like a piece of bread. Who doesn't
love bread with butter or olive oil? It's delicious, but it's
also simple and, frankly, it feels like a starter. But when you
slather your bread with tapenade, full of olives, anchovies,
garlic, and herbs, it becomes a different dish—exciting and full
of flavor. It becomes a meal.  Tapenade, like pesto, is blended
together with olive oil, so in essence it's just a highly
flavored cooking medium. Smother chicken in it and not only does
it get coated with olive oil, but also crusted in olives and
herbs. Bake it in the oven and, just like that, you've created
something really different without ha