A song of gladness – rhapsody in white truffle mustard sautéed chicken
Marinate a cubed large boneless skinless chicken breast in Mazola Corn Oil for about 10 minutes. Sprinkle with crushed dry fresh thyme leaves. Do not salt, but add lots of fresh ground pepper. A little nutmeg goes a long way, but a quarter teaspoon fluttered over the chicken pieces adds a wonderful touch.
Just before you are ready to sauté, sprinkle with a little garlic salt and a generous amount of regular salt. Toss in the marinating oil.
Using a rubber spatula, wipe the marinating plate clean as you usher the chicken pieces into a very hot sauté skillet with low sides, using all the marinating oil.
Listen for the sizzle. The skillet needs to be very hot, but adjust it so the chicken doesn’t burn. Don’t touch for a few minutes as the chicken pieces sear. When they don’t stick to the pan surface, using an egg turner, move the chicken pieces around the skillet, tumbling them so all sides come in contact with the pan.
This all happens in just minutes like with a minute-steak and the chicken pieces cook very quickly. Don’t leave the stove. Remember always, the chicken will continue to cook in its own heat, so you want it just barely cooked.
Empty the skillet that has a slightly browned surface and add a large dollop of butter. Toss quartered white button mushrooms (I used about two cups) just to sear once over lightly in the very hot sizzling golden but not brown butter (you don’t want beurre noisette). Add a half teaspoon of crushed thyme and stir. Add lots of salt and fresh ground pepper, only after the mushrooms have seared. Salt makes mushrooms weep. Wait until they are cooked.
Add the mushrooms to the chicken holding bowl and toss.
There should be only a smear of oily butter in the pan. Use it to sauté a half small onion, chopped very fine. Keep the onion moving and turn the burner to low. You don’t want the onions to brown.
Leaving the onion in the skillet, deglaze the very hot pan with about a cup of half and half cream. Scald the cream and using a wooden spoon, move the onions around. Let the cream rise and fall, lower the heat and reduce about a third.
Into the thickened onion cream, stir a heaping tablespoon of Petite Maison White Truffle Mustard. Again using your wooden spoon, mix well. Then stir in just a teaspoon of WildlyDelicious Black Maple Magic balsamic vinegar. Combine.
Turn the waiting sautéed chicken pieces and mushrooms, including the collected liquid, into the WildlyDelicious White Truffle Dijon Mustard Cream Sauce.
Sprinkle with a little more crushed thyme and add finely chopped parsley (dry will work). Use quite a bit, at least a quarter cup. Cover and let the flavours marry. Adjust the seasoning again.
Now add a few slices of fresh peaches. If fresh ones are not available, use tinned peaches (not the ones in unsweetened packing juice). Marinate the tinned peach slices in homemade sugar syrup for a few hours in your mis en place preparation. Add lots of pepper. Peaches love pepper. Stir just once to mix. Add to the chicken mix and fold.
Cover and serve over plain buttered basmati rice. Beyond special.
Pair this with my all-time favourite: Sparkling (champagne) rose, Royal de Neuville, from France. Gourmet never tasted so good. Takes no time to prepare and can be made ahead, but use within a couple of hours. For some reason, this sort of dish changes its chemistry after being refrigerated, and is best served freshly made. But it is still wonderful the second or third day.
In addition:
Another way to serve this amazing dish is to change up the presentation by putting a generous portion on an approximate four-inch circle or square of puff pastry, which you have sprinkled with homemade coarse fluffy breadcrumbs as a base. Paint the pastry edges with a little egg wash. Place on a parchment lined cookie sheet, in a 400 F preheated oven just until the pastry puffs. The chicken is already cooked, so it will just warm through.
It’s a wonderful hot hors d’ouvres. You can make smaller puffs or larger ones, or even roll out a pastry dough as you would for a galette, and just tuck up and over the pastry edges, leaving the centre open; cut into large pie-shaped wedges and serve.
And another way to serve: Prepare wide egg noodles, store-bought or fresh homemade papperadelle. (No wide noodles available? Buy store-bought fresh made pasta lasagna noodles and cut in one-inch wide portions before cooking.) Or use pasta bowties. Drain well and stir melted butter with fresh chiffonade of basil into the pasta. Another day: Serve with fresh made (instantly cooked) spatzle. Mound with the white truffle mustard chicken mix. So instantly yum!
AND, another easy-do favourite: Serve with a barbecued generous-size portobello mushroom. Prepare the mushroom and transfer it to a hot glass plate. Drizzle the gill side of each mushroom with just a little oil from your marinating goat cheese jar. Mound the gill side of each generous mushroom with the chicken, peach, button mushroom, white truffle mustard mix. Adjust seasonings and serve hot or warm. Remember, a portobello mushroom tastes like steak.
An additional gourmet touch: Sprinkle the stuffed portobello mushroom with fresh homemade seasoned breadcrumbs: (sage, rosemary and thyme – or just a tiny sprinkle of poultry seasoning in the breadcrumbs), and place under a preheated broiler for just seconds. Another memory maker… enjoy!
For an additional gourmet treat, and for something entirely different:
Make a phyllo (filo) pastry ring about four inches or so in diameter, by wrapping the dough around the handle of a wooden spoon; push off the pastry and wrap in a circular position, so it looks a bit like a large donut with a hole. Brush with just a little egg wash. Bake on high heat (400 F) for five minutes or until browned. Brush the pastry with parsley, sage and thyme butter, or melt the herb butter log of your choice from your selection of frozen logs. When the pastry is still hot, fill the centre hole in the phyllo pastry, served on a plate, with the chicken mixture, as above.
If you ever make chicken pot pie, substitute this recipe for your regular chicken mix, or enjoy the white truffle mustard sauce chicken (make extra) and then use the leftovers for pot pie. Top with Duchess potatoes, pipe with your forcing bag using a fluted tube, spritz with melted butter and pop under the broiler to flash brown the potatoes. Use a heat-proof French onion soup dish for each pot pie.
© “From Lady Ralston’s Kitchen: A Canadian Contessa Cooks”
(Turning everyday meal making into a Gourmet Experience)
The working title for Carolyne’s Gourmet Recipes cookbook is From Lady Ralston’s Kitchen: A Canadian Contessa Cooks. This kitchen-friendly doyenne has been honoured and referred to as the grande dame of executive real estate in her market area during her 35-year career. She taught gourmet cooking in the mid-70s and wrote a weekly newspaper cooking column, long before gourmet was popular as it is today. Her ebook, Gourmet Cooking – at Home with Carolyne is available here for $5.99 US. Email Carolyne. Scroll down to the comments at each recipe column. Carolyne often adds complimentary “From Lady Ralston’s Kitchen” additional recipes in the Recipes for Realtors Comments section at REM.
