Sautéed Chicken Breast with Whole Grain Mustard and Sage

I found this recipe on the Food Network web site in May while looking for recipes that use chicken breasts. The recipe had a five star average rating, so I printed the recipe and added it to my stack of recipes to make in the future.

Yesterday I pulled several recipes to make for meals this week and the Sautéed Chicken Breast with Whole Grain Mustard and Sage came to the top. I am glad that I chose a recipe that didn’t require too much preparation time because we were out running errands for most of the afternoon, and after a brief stop at the store to pick up a few items, it was already early evening and I didn’t want to eat too late.

I decided to use our large stainless squared sided skillet for cooking the chicken to help reduce the splattering on the stovetop. While the skillet heated over medium heat, I got out the chicken breasts, sprinkled on salt and pepper, and then dredged them through some all-purpose flour. I have learned that when dredging meat in flour, it is best to shake off the extra flour so that it doesn’t get gooey (this is an instance when less is more). Once the skillet was hot, I added about a tablespoon of grape seed oil to heat. I placed two chicken breasts in the pan to cook and put the last piece of raw chicken in the refrigerator, as three breasts in the pan would have been too crowded.

I used skinless chicken breasts so I let them cook on one side for four minutes. Part way through the four minutes, my wife came in and asked me to turn the fan on full as the smell from frying the chicken was spreading in the house. I said that I am sautéing the chicken; see it says so in the title of the recipe. Oh, wait, hot pan, hot oil, add meat, she was correct that this is frying. I turned the pieces of chicken over and cooked them for another seven minutes.

Once the chicken breasts were cooked, I removed them from the pan, placed them on a plate, and covered them with foil to keep warm. I started the sauce by adding ½ cup of white wine to the skillet and stirring with a spatula to deglaze the pan. I had to turn up the heat to medium high and I cooked the wine until it thickened. To the wine, I added the 1 ½ cups of chicken broth, eight fresh sage leaves and let the mixture cook for about six minutes until the sauce reduced by about ¼. I removed the skillet from the heat and whisked in two tablespoons of margarine and 1 ½ tablespoons of Deli Original style Monastery Mustard. I tried using my spatula to integrate these two items into the hot sauce, but it just wasn’t working, so I used the whisk as specified in the recipe (I dislike dirtying more utensils than necessary).

I cut the chicken breasts in half (to make sure they were completely cooked), served each half breast with brown rice, topped with about ¼ cup of the sauce. We enjoyed the dinner though the mustard was a little spicy and next time I may only use one tablespoon, but it was still good. The sage leaves in the sauce added a subtle flavor and made a nice garnish on the rice.

I was unsure if I would make this recipe again until we ate the remainder for our lunch. The chicken was quite flavorful after soaking in the remaining sauce overnight and though the sauce was still a little on the spicy side, it made a very enjoyable entrée for our lunch and my wife asked me to keep the recipe in our meal rotation.

Find the recipe here: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchens/sauteed-chicken-breast-with-whole-grain-mustard-and-sage-recipe2/index.html

Adventures In Food: Author: Kerry Howell