Chicken Sierra

I sent my husband to the store today for two packages of chicken thighs, and it just occurred to me that he did come back with two. But I was not specific. I was looking for the small packages that contain 4 thighs. Now mind you, it is just the two of us here, and I just realized we now have 48 chicken thighs! What a good laugh and what a good lesson for me! So, would you like to join me in the kitchen to make some chicken? I need some help vacuum packing the chicken!

Whew! That took a while…Now on to dinner! Tonight let’s do a variation of a sautéed chicken including portobello mushrooms, artichoke hearts and peas. Want a preview?

Preview of Chicken Sierra

Ingredients
8 chicken thighs
3/4 cup of flour
several healthy shakes of garlic powder
1 TBS paprika
Fresh ground salt and pepper
4 glugs of extra virgin olive oil
4 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 large shallot, chopped
1/4 cup cooking sherry
1 can of chicken broth
1 can of cream of mushroom soup
2 portobello mushrooms
8 oz. frozen artichoke hearts, thawed
1/2 cup frozen peas, thawed
1 1/2 tsp. each of dried thyme and basil
1 bay leaf
salt and pepper to taste

I read an article that said you should never wash chicken. The claim was that you scatter possible salmonella all over your sink. I still wash chicken, and I clean up very well in the sink and around the sink. I am very careful with handling chicken. So, let’s wash the chicken, and trim off the excess skin from the thighs too. Next let’s put the flour, garlic powder, salt and pepper as you like it, into a ziplock bag. We will shake it until all is well blended. Next, let’s add the chicken and shake to get it well coated.

Now let’s head over to the stove. In a deep skillet, we are going to add the olive oil. Next, let’s turn the heat on to medium high and as the oil heats, let’s chop up the shallot and garlic. I see that the oil is hot, so let’s add the chicken skin side down. We are going to get this nice and brown on both sides.

Browning chicken

Now that the chicken is done let’s remove it for now to a plate, and drain the pan. Next, we will add the shallot and the garlic to the pan. Can you stir this for me until it just starts to caramelize?

Can’t you just smell the garlic?

While you are stirring that, let me add the sherry and 1/4 of the can of chicken broth. While this is heating up, if you can continue stirring, I will add in the cream of mushroom soup and the remaining chicken broth. Next let’s add the mushrooms, artichoke hearts and peas, along with the spices. Let’s get this blended really well and then we shall let it simmer for about 5 minutes.

Can you spot the bay leaf?

Now doesn’t that smell good? Let’s add back the chicken and scoop the pan mixture over it. Now that it is all together, can you put the cover on? Thanks!

Let’s let this simmer on low for about 40 minutes. And while it is cooking we can clean up and get the rice ready to go and our bowls and flatware ready. Now how about a glass of wine? Would you like Chardonnay or Grenache? Both will go really well with our dinner. Did I mention that we will need to stir the chicken a couple of times while it cooks?  No?  Well, we are going to need to do this too.

Looks like dinner is just about ready,  Let’s serve this over the jasmine rice we made.

Dinner is served!

Can you grab the wine?