Dinner and a Movie

Last night I made a delicious French Chicken in White Wine Sauce:

2 Tbs. unsalted butter
3-1/2 to 4 lb. chicken pieces
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 medium carrot, finely chopped
1/2 rib celery, finely chopped
2 oz. prosciutto, finely chopped
3/4 cup dry white wine
3/4 cup low-salt canned chicken stock
3 Tbs. heavy cream

Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Season the chicken with kosher salt and pepper and cook it in the skillet on the skin side to brown it and to render the fat from the skin, about 15 minutes. Turn the chicken over and cook on the bone side for about 5 minutes. Remove and reserve the chicken.

Pour off all but 2 Tbs. of the fat from the pan. Add the onion, carrot, celery, and prosciutto and sauté until the onion is browned and the vegetables are softened, 8 to 10 minutes. Add the wine and chicken stock to the pan and stir to combine with vegetables. Put the chicken back into the pan. Bring the liquid to a boil, reduce to a simmer, cover the skillet with a lid, and simmer the chicken in the sauce until cooked through, 20 to 25 minutes.

Remove the chicken from the pan, turn the heat to high and bring the liquid to a boil. Reduce the volume of liquid by half, about 5 minutes. Add the cream, stir to combine, and remove the pan from the heat. Serve chicken and sauce over broad noodles in wide soup plates.


We watched "The Sea Inside," which was almost unbearably powerful and moving and beautiful. About a bazillion times better than the previous night's flick, "Tape," which sucked so bad I'm at a loss to come up with better synonyms for suck.

Comments

[Margaret]

This sounds delicious with the heavy cream. I'm not a big coq au vin fan, but this sounds good.

[Karen]

In truth the heavy cream worried me -- I was afraid it was going to be a heavy, creamy (!) dish -- but it was such a tiny amount that it really just added a bit of depth and richness to the sauce, as it was supposed to! This was supposed to serve 4-6 people, but there was barely enough sauce for just me and Andy! We were very busy sopping it up with bread and noodles.

I think coq au vin uses red wine, no? And this doesn't have the dreaded pearl onions! It's more of a fricassee.