Alright, let’s put this chicken dish together. This is a chicken breast with Herbes de Provence. And we’re going to do a beautiful mushroom pan sauce with this.
So, let’s get our Herbes de Provence chicken breast prepped, very simple. Two cloves of garlic crushed and here you go, this is herbs from Herbes de Provence in a decent gourmet shop or supermarket even in the—you’re going to see this. It is a mixture about eight different dried herbs. The dominant herbs will be rosemary — margarine, there’s actually little lavender in there, a beautiful aromatic. See how nice and green that is. It’s a good quality one, it’s fresh. There’s an old saying with herbs. If it’s brown, set it done. Okay. Don’t use the old brown dried up herbs—fibers are gone so that was a beautiful dish right there. And I’m going to put a celery grinned black pepper on there, no salt. We’ll salt this before we sear it. And just a tablespoon of olive oil just like you make a little bit of rub here with the garlic and the Herbes de Provence.
Now minimum, two hours in the fridge. Alright, the longer is better. If you’re going to leave this overnight that would be great. Alright, let’s put this dish together. The main ingredient of our sauce here is going to be the sautéed mushrooms. So, I took about 15 mushrooms. I’m going to slice those up and I’m going—you want to quarter or you want to have them so it’s fine with me. The key is they’re the same size, alight. If you have really thin slices and have some thick slices and they don’t cook evenly, that’s when they’re not so great cooked sauce, looks a little weird. You’re going to take your time and make those all even.
Now, I really like the old half butter half olive oil mixture for a dish like this and I’m putting about twice as much as I normally would to sear this chicken breast. So, that was about three tablespoons of oil and three tablespoons of butter. Okay. That is a lot of fat but I’m going to cook my mushrooms in that also and I’m going to use the extra fat to make a roux. So, don’t worry. I know it looks like a lot but that’s fine. I give it about five minutes per side. That was just enough time to give it a nice brown caramelization. Certainly not going to cook it all the way through in five minutes on each side but it’s going to be about halfway I guess. So, take those out. That’s five minutes each side. And I’m going to finish simmering those in the sauce at the end.
So, we’re just going to set those off and grab our mushrooms. So, it’s about I don’t know, two or three cups of mushrooms. And see, these are all that extra fat came in it. Those mushrooms really suck up that extra oil and butter. I’m going to add about a ½ of teaspoon of salt here and that salt is going to bring out the water in the mushroom. I turn my pan to medium. Alright in fact, I just turned it up to medium high because those mushrooms are going to take a lot of heat and there’s nothing in that pan that’s going to burn. Okay. There’s no garlic left, there’s nothing that’s going to give us some trouble. So, I want a nice brown caramelization on the mushroom and you don’t have to make them too dark. I’m going to hold up one up here. But I do want, you see that. I do want a nice little brown this on the mushroom. Okay. Now, when you think those mushrooms have cooked enough, you’ll be the judge, I want you to sprinkle in, turn your heat down to medium. I want you to sprinkle in about a tablespoon of flour.
Now traditionally, roux is just flour and the butter oiled pan to our oil mix. Here, we’re using that actual mushroom to make it real. Now very important, the key to this dish is that you cook out the flour. Meaning, you’ve got to cook the starch in the flour otherwise it will taste floury and starchy. How do you know it’s done? A great tip of chef once gave me, when the pan smells like cooked pie crust, you know that flour is cooked, okay. That took at least six minutes. Alright so, I sauté that on medium for about six minutes and I was pretty sure that that flour was cooked and I had almost like a mushroom smell to it that was really—you could smell the cooked flour but it smells raw and you get a little on it, okay. Alright so into that cooked roux, we’re going to add two cups of really high quality organic chicken broth. I’m going to turn that up to high and here’s my secret ingredient. Don’t tell anybody, about a ½ a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar.
Now, you see that beautiful color and it turns it from that pale, almost yellow to a nice rich brown, also that little bit of acid, that little bit of sweetness in the vinegar really balances up the flavor. I want to take them to a simmer. I’m going to turn it down to low. And I’m going to boil this chicken breast, allow them just to simmer lightly. I’m going to give my butter another five minutes on each side and that should just about cook the chicken. And also because I’m not covering this, the sauce is going to reduce and that flour is going to slowly thicken the sauce and it’s really good. It’s just going to have a beautiful texture and consistency.
Alright so, I took up the chicken breast so they’re just about done, actually we’re done. I just want to adjust my sauce, a little salt, a little pepper maybe, see, that’s a nice thickness. And if it’s a little loose, turn up the heat and just reduce a little more. But because of that tablespoon of flour, I’ve got a beautiful mushroom sauce to put this chicken back in, drip in the juices from the pan and that’s ready to serve. So, this one of the dishes that looks fancy, it tastes fancy, it’s not fancy. Alright, no one will know about the balsamic vinegar, that’s our secret. And I serve it with some polenta, with Julienne, a red pepper. There’s also another demos on the site. And I top a little fresher. I like the combination of dry herb by marinating with same type of herbs on top, a little mushroom, a little fresh basil and you come out. You want that, don’t you? See how good that looks. Alright, you can make that and very simple, very easy. All in one pan and I really hope you enjoy that.
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