Friday, February 10, 2017

Chicken and Mushrooms

When I got the book Stacy Lyn's Harvest Cookbook, I saw a lot of recipes I wanted to make. But, like many books that celebrate harvests, it called for a lot of fresh ingredients that aren't particularly wonderful at the grocery store in February. While I probably could have bought strawberries, I know they would have been sub-par, and that's not fair to the recipe or to the rest of the ingredients.

I paged through the book until I saw the Chicken and Mushrooms over Cheesy Grits. It sounded good, and the ingredients all made sense at this time of year. But the grits. Sigh. I adore grits, but I had just made a batch of rice with saffron. So I skipped the grits (waaaah, I love grits) and I served the chicken with the rice.

I followed the recipe pretty closely except that when I grabbed the chicken stock, it was actually turkey stock. Oops.

Oh! And I used all crimini (aka baby bella) mushrooms. I'm not fond of shitaki mushrooms enough to want to buy them. So, instead of 1/2 pound of crimini, 1/4 of button, and 1/4 pound of shitaki, I used all crimini.

The other adjustment I made was that after the chicken was done, I thought the sauce was too thin, so I removed the chicken, removed the lid, and continued cooking the rest until the sauce was reduced and it had thickened more. The instructions called for cooking it "partially covered" which is open to interpretation. I guess mine was more covered than it should have been.

I think if I make it again, I'll cook uncovered at first and cover it if I think it needs to be covered. While it didn't look like it was going to be too liquidy when I first assembled it, the mushrooms exuded a lot of liquid during cooking. But some folks might prefer more liquid, so it's not a fault with the recipe, it's just a preference.

Chicken and Mushrooms
Adapted from Stacy Lyn's Harvest Cookbook by Stacy Lyn Harris

4 skinless, boneless chicken thighs
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground pepper
1/4 cup flour
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 large onions, cut into 1-inch pieces
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 large carrots cut into 1-inch pieces (I had small carrots, so I used 4)
1 pound crimini mushrooms
1 tablespoons rosemary, chopped
1 1/2 cups chicken stock

Combine the flour, salt, and pepper in a shallow dish, then coat the chicken with the flour. Save about 1 tablespoon of the flour remaining in the plate.

Put the oil in a large pot and heat over medium-high heat. When the oil is shimmering, add the chicken and cook until brown on all sides. Remove the chicken from the pan.

Reduce the heat to medium, add the onions, and cook for 2 minutes (I cooked mine a bit longer, until the onions were softened a bit). Add the garlic and cook for 30 seconds, then add the flour and cook for one more minute, stirring.

Add the broth, carrots, mushrooms, and rosemary. Return the chicken to the pan, along with any juices that came out of the chicken. Bring the liquid to a boil, then partially cover the pot and lower the heat so it simmers. Cook for 25-30 minutes, or until the chicken is no longer pink in the middle and the vegetables are tender.

At this point, I removed the chicken so it wouldn't overcook, and I removed the lid and increased the heat to thicken and reduce the sauce. You might or might not need to do this.

Serve over rice, grits, or whatever you prefer.

About the book: There are a lot of recipes here that I'll try when there are more fresh fruits and vegetables in season. My one quibble about the book isn't the recipes, but the printing. It's a pretty book, no doubt, but a lot of the recipes are printed on pages that have colored, patterned backgrounds. It's certainly lovely to look at, but it makes the text harder to read. Not impossible, but not as easy to read at a glance as if the page had black ink on plain white paper.

I received the book from the publisher at no cost to me.
Yum