The Supremes have made some really great music but "Supremes de Volaile aux Champignons" (Chicken Breasts with Mushrooms and Cream) made a really tasty dinner as well! This was the main entree for a dinner that included "Tomates a la Provencale" and "Navets a L'Etuvee." A pretty historic meal - three separate dishes and they were all finished at the same time and on time! They'll be described in separate posts but it seems I've made a little progress over the past couple of months when a single dish was often a couple hours late. Then again, I do need to attempt baking some things before too long and I'm sure that'll have a better chance of causing some time issues...
This preparation started out with a new experience for me -- I used shallots! I'm sure I've had shallots in something that someone's prepared for me in the past but I've never used or even touched a shallot before. It looked like a baby red onion and had a mellow onion flavor. It certainly sounds a lot more fancy (and French) to say I used shallots instead of onions, eh?
To get started the shallot was diced along with some fresh mushrooms. This dish was another of those fun chicken recipes that starts with cooking some spices and other goodies in butter, then cooking the chicken breasts in the butter mixture, and then using the buttery juice to make a quick cream sauce. In the true tradition of French cooking, 5 tablespoons were heated until the butter was foaming and then the diced shallots and mushrooms were added and sauteed for a minute or two, but not enough to brown them.
The chicken was then added to the pan and seemed to be happy to roll around in the butter/shallot/mushroom mixture to coat everything with that buttery goodness. The pan was covered while the chicken cooked over medium heat. I only removed the lid long enough to roll everything over about halfway through the cooking process and when the chicken was springy to the touch it was done. Okay, confession -- I'm still a little nervous about trusting my confidence in the "springy" assessment so I also double checked with a meat thermometer.
After the chicken was removed, it was time to make the sauce. I really enjoy this part - I am still amazed at how quickly the remnants in the pan can be turned into a really delicious cream sauce. I know there are some other types of sauces as well but at the moment "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" is helping me master cream sauces. Cream is my new friend and has become a staple to be kept in the fridge at all times!
To start the sauce, 1/4 cup of chicken broth and 1/4 cup of white grape juice (substituted in place of wine) were poured into the pan over medium high heat. Everything was stirred together and quickly cooked until it reduced to a syrupy consistency. As soon as it turned syrupy the cream was added. About a cup of cream was poured in all around, then stirred up, and continued to cook over the medium high heat until it had thickened to the desired consistency.
Learning from a previous post where I'd poured all the sauce over the chicken and the appearance was horrible, I followed the suggestion of one of my readers and applied the sauce a bit differently this time. I think it definitely appeared a bit more appealing this time around. Agree? A portion of the sauce was poured onto the serving plate before any of the chicken was added. Then the chicken was arranged in, what I hope was, a nice presentation. The remaining sauce was then added over the top of the chicken and chopped parsley was sprinkled over the top to add a little color.
I was met with cheers and loud applause when I brought the completed dish to the dining table. Well, that may be a slight exaggeration. It wasn't technically cheering and what I thought was applause might have just been a napkin being sat on the table. I am pretty sure, however, that I did hear at least one of my sous chefs tell me that it looked really good. Seriously though, if our hands weren't full of silverware and our mouths full of food we would have talked about how good everything tasted. Even though I've never been a huge fan of mushrooms, I really thought this was quite tasty.
All together this dish took less than 20 minutes to prepare. A nice option when you want to prepare a nice quick dinner. I hope you'll try it...and don't forget the shallots!
Bon Appetit!
Mushroom sauce on Chicken. No sauce went to waste.