Caramelized Chicken with Mushrooms

Caramelized Chicken with Mushroom Sauce and Grilled Herb Bread.

March 2, 2011

Ask and you shall receive!

You’ve probably heard me ranting and raving about how I’m obsessed with mushrooms now.

People! This is huge. This is a vegetable. A vegetable that I like. A vegetable that I not only like, but that I really, really love. If this can happen with mushrooms, maybe it can happen with something ugly and green like broccoli?

I won’t hold my breath.

This is the dinner that I made on Sunday night after asking for your suggestions. It was so delicious that I made it again Monday for lunch and dinner. With most recipes I burn out quickly – loving them so much, making them too often, and getting sick of them within a week.

But this is different. I’m still craving this meal. I’m craving the mushrooms on the bread. The warm, toasty, buttery and mouth-watering bread. Mushrooms. Wine. Butter.

Swoon.

Talk about comfort food.

I can’t even think about anything else. Mushrooms and butter and wine and bread on the brain, 24/7. Can you tell?

All I gotta say is that you must try this soon. And if you don’t eat chicken, make the mushrooms, grill the bread, devour the meal. You should probably add extra butter and wine too.

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Caramelized Chicken with Mushroom Sauce and Grilled Herb Bread

serves 2

4 thinly sliced boneless, skinless chicken breasts

1/3 cup all purpose flour

2 tablespoons olive oil

3 tablespoons butter

1/4 onion, chopped

2 cups sliced mushrooms

1/3 cup white wine

bread of your choice (I used whole grain talonica bread)

salt and pepper

for bread: 1/4-1/2 cup butter, softened + herbs of your choice (I used parsley, basil and thyme – a good sprinkling of each)

Season the chicken breasts (make sure they are very thin or slice them thin!) liberally with salt and pepper. Add the flour in a bowl and dredge the chicken in the flour – you want a very thin and light coating on the chicken. Heat a large skillet on medium high heat and add the olive oil. Add the chicken to the skillet and brown on each side, about 3-4 minutes per side. While the chicken is browning, chop the onion and get out your mushrooms. Slice your bread as desired. Combine 1/4 cup of butter and herbs of your choice (you really can’t go wrong here! I’ve used dried and fresh, just add a sprinkling to the butter.) and mix. Spread on one side of bread. At this point you can either use a grill pan and grill the bread buttered-side down first, or heat your broiler and set the bread underneath for 30-90 seconds.

Once chicken is done cooking (after about 7-8 minutes total), set it aside on a plate. Turn heat down to medium and add 1 tablespoon butter and onion. Saute for 1 minute. Add the remaining butter (2 tablespoons) and mushrooms. Stir and saute for 6-8 minutes, until mushrooms are soft. Add in wine to deglaze the pan and stir well to remove brown bits from bottom of the pan. Add chicken back in with the mushrooms.

Serve hot with bread for dipping. I made a lot of bread and refrigerated it – it was still great the next day! You can also do this with thicker chicken breasts, your total recipe time will just take a bit longer.

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