Tastes Like Chicken, but Better

This tastes like chicken because it is. But I figure everyone needs an extra way to cook up some yard bird, and this is one of my favorites. Cara's brother learned this recipe in culinary school, and I now pass it along to you. You'll need some butter, a shallot, some shrooms, a couple of tablespoons of flour, a cup of Chardonnay (which is a dry white wine for the uninitiated), a cup of heavy cream, and two cups of chicken stock. The stuff that comes from a box is fine.

Funny story: we used to attend a church in Houston where everyone brought a pot luck dish of some sort for after the service. It was really cool- everyone brought their A-game, and there were quite a few really good cooks. I usually brought something totally out of the ordinary (for them) like curries or some other Indian fare.

One day I brought this, and I thought a fight was gonna break out over who got to lick the pan. I became a far bigger rock star that day at church than I ever had been when I was actually playing in a rock band.

The next Sunday a lady asked me for the recipe, and when I told her there was, gasp, white wine in it she really had no idea how to react. She said something along the lines of, "I couldn't buy wine- I wouldn't feel right about going down that aisle at the store." To which I replied something incredibly witty, but can no longer remember. But I'm here to tell all you fellow Calvinist Credo-Baptists that read this site (all three of you. Or less)- there's flavor in those there bottles. And you don't have to drink them. Although I do recommend it. But that's just me. I used the following for this post, but use whatever you like. You know, if you like wine. Or even if you don't, cause it just ain't French without both butter and wine.And while I'm showing you pictures of stuff, this is a shallot, which you absolutely must use:Those are mushrooms in behind it. And that's our sweet new cutting board from Kohl's underneath it. Again, in case you care.

Anyway, throw some butter in a pan and get it medium hot. After seasoning with salt and pepper, dredge your boneless, skinless, usually flavorless chicken breasts though the flour. You just want a light coat so they'll get the right color. The flour also becomes fond in the pan which adds to the flavor of the sauce, and this sauce makes church ladies fight if you do it right. And that's a sight to behold. They'll look like this:
After tossing them in the butter you must leave them alone. You want them to be golden brown and delicious. You are not allowed to touch them for a long time. You can probably cook up to six chicken breasts this way and still have enough sauce, but you can always add more of the sauce ingredients to make more if you've got a lot of starving people camped out at your house, sucking the life's blood out of you. After the chicken has firmed up nicely you have my permission to flip them. The first side should look like this:
When the second side looks like the first, take them out and start making the sauce. The sauce, my friends, is what writes the songs that makes the whole world sing.

Add your diced up shallots and mushrooms to the pan and cook them down for 3-5 minutes. Then add one cup of the wine. Scrape the brown bits out of the pan while the wine is reducing (and thus concentrating the flavor). It'll take a few minutes, but it's where you want it when it looks like a thin coat of liquid in the pan. Like this:Now add the chicken stock, and reduce it down to about a quarter of what you started with. Then add the cream (turn the heat down a touch) and simmer it for about five minutes- it'll start to thicken up nicely. Add the chicken back to the pan to warm though. Then spoon some sauce on a serving plate and put the chicken on top of the puddle. Take a picture:Add something green to the occasion and open something to drink. Your choice!

Cuttin' up a Chicken

Have you ever paid attention to exactly how cheap whole chickens are when they go on sale? They're, like, practically free. Or at least four bucks. And honestly, once you get good at cutting them up, you'll be blown away at how much cheaper it is to do it yourself, and how much better the pieces turn out. Boneless, skinless chicken breasts from the store look like hacked-up roadkill compared to what you can do. Plus, at home you get to keep the skin if you want, and I often do if I'm grilling them.

Instead of taking a thousand pictures and the usual witty remarks in how-to format, I made a video. The camera turned itself off right as I was about to tell you to start making homemade chicken stock with the carcass. It's funny saying "carcass" on a food post. Carcass!

Chicken! Prunes! Brandy!

Apparently, we now have a subscription to Bon Appetite magazine. Neither Cara nor I remember subscribing or anything, but it showed up in the mail box all the same. We did have some old airline miles that may be playing a role in this, but whatever.

I once looked through a Bon Appetite in a waiting room or some such, and I remember not knowing what any of the ingredients were- it was a all so darn fancy. Shallots? Demi-glace? Huh? Of course, that was a long time ago, before my freakish cooking obsession really hit hard. Now I'll have another source of inspiration to share with you- my primary source, by the way, is Cook's Illustrated, which is the best cookin' magazine around. No, really.

Anyhow- I know many people think prunes are something old people eat to stay regular. Some have begun to call them "dried plums" so people will know what they actually are- and you like plums, don't you? You could make this without them, but that would be a mistake.

First, open a bottle of brandy. For all my church friends reading this that means you'll have to go to a liquor store. Liquor stores are often closed on Sunday, by the way. I always realize this on Sundays when I need some liquor, but that's another post altogether.

There is probably a brand that would be the best for this recipe, but since I know very little about brandy, I just bought something in the mid range in price- the recipe in the magazine called for "Armagnac," which after doing some "research" (thanks, internet!) I have discovered that, yes, Armagnac is expensive, fancy-pants brandy that they probably wouldn't sell at Walgreen's Liquors here in town. As a matter of fact, I know they don't. They do sell about ten kinds of cheap brandy, though. I got E&J for no real reason. It worked fine.

I really more or less looked at the picture in the magazine and skimmed the recipe than copy it exactly, by the way. I did, as the recipe says, boil the prunes (I used about eight of 'em) in 1/3 cup of brandy until the liquid was absorbed.

I then broke out my sweet buffet casserole braiser and browned four chicken thighs skin side down (after I had salted and peppered them that is- kosher salt, please).
Before: After:
They're not all the way cooked yet or anything- the skin just needs some alone time to get lookin' that good. Next- I poured out a little bit of the accumulated fat (not much), and threw in the freshly peeled shallots:
The goal here is to get 'em all browned and delicious. Like this:
Next, you've gotta deglaze the pan with some more (1/3 cup) brandy- this means pour it in and get to scraping the fond (brown stuff stuck to pan) up to make the sauce rich and delicious. Like this:
Now you're in the home stretch. Just add the chicken back to the pan with a little thyme, and about a cup of chicken stock, and put the lid on as it simmers away for about half and hour.
After the chicken was cooked through I took it out, and added a dash of white wine vinegar (the recipe said sherry wine vinegar, but I didn't have any). I reduced the sauce for a few minutes and poured it over the chicken. in the mean time I cooked up some broccoli and taters. It looked like this at the end:
Here's the picture from the magazine and my version side by side:
So, to sum up you need:
brandy
chicken
chicken stock
shallots
prunes
thyme
salt and pepper

And the secret ingredient:

Love

In other news, I just had my first ever political telephone poll. Go Ron Paul!