This simple recipe should take about an hour.
Based on a recent experiment that turned out well. It can be served on pasta or rice or toast if you please.
As with a lot of my recipes, we'll be deglazing with a vegetable instead of water or wine. Deglazing is the process of dissolving fond from the bottom of a pan or skillet into some kind of liquid. This works best in a large non-stick skillet but can work with any old large skillet, it will just require extra stirring as the liquids come out of the vegetable.
For dishes like this, I generally prefer chicken thighs over breast meat, as you can simmer it for a fairly long time without drying out the meat. This gives the flavors time to get to know each other.
We will be adding garlic slices at multiple points in the cooking process. This is done so that we get garlic slices of various levels of doneness. That way, we get more complexity from a single ingredient.
Ingredients
2½—3 lbs boneless skinless chicken thighs
4 or so cloves of fresh garlic, sliced thin
2 lemons, one zested and juiced, the other sliced thin with the seeds picked out
1 lb of sliced mushrooms
1 rice bowl (about ½ cup) of julienned sun-dried tomatoes
½ cup or so of chicken broth or stock (low or no salt)
Butter
Salt & pepper
2 tablespoons of corn starch mixed with an equal amount of cold water in a slurry
Step 1: Start chopping
Zest a whole lemon, then juice it. Slice the other lemon into thin slices, picking out the seeds as you go. Slice the fresh mushrooms (use whatever kind you prefer). Julienne the sun-dried tomatoes if they aren't already. Peel your fresh garlic cloves and cut them into thin slices.
I like to make my corn starch slurry in a baby food jar, as you can vigorously shake it to make the slurry (I'm pretty sure lots of Asian-American households do it this way). However you mix the corn starch and water, be certain to do it again just before adding it to the sauce, or you'll get lumps.
Step 2: Sear the chicken
Bring a large skillet (non-stick if you have it) to high or medium-high heat. Melt a substantial pile of butter into it (a tablespoon or two). Salt & pepper both sides of your chicken and sear both sides in the skillet. This takes around 6 to 8 minutes on my stovetop. Don't worry about cooking the chicken through, as it will go back into the heat later. Just make sure you get a nice, brown coating on both sides of the chicken. Set the chicken aside in a large bowl. A metal bowl would help it cool down a bit so that you don't get too many juices leaving the chicken when you cut it later.
This step should build up some nice fond (hard, dark, crunchy bits in the bottom of the skillet). That fond is pure flavor, which we're going to deglaze with the mushrooms in the next step.
Because of the amount of chicken, you will likely have to sear the chicken in two batches. Sprinkle a few slices of garlic about halfway through the first batch, then a few more garlic slices about halfway through the second batch.
Step 3: Deglaze with mushrooms
Turn the heat down to medium or medium-high, then add mushrooms. Add more salt & pepper. The mushrooms will soak up a lot of the butter and chicken fat, so add more butter if you think the pan needs it. Add more garlic slices.
Let the pan simmer for a few minutes until you get a lot of liquid coming out of the mushrooms. If the heat is too high, the water will boil away before you can use it to deglaze the fond leftover from searing the chicken, but if the heat is too low, it will take too long to properly brown the mushrooms in this step.
Once the fond has all been dissolved, you can let the pot simmer unmolested for 6 to 8 minutes to build up a brown crust from Maillard reactions. Stir, and brown other sides of the mushrooms (at this point, there will be less moisture in the pan, so it will take less time than the previous browning. Stir again, and brown again. At this point, you are probably building up mushroom fond in the bottom of the skillet.
While the mushrooms are cooking, you should have time to cut the chicken into finger-sized slices. Wait at least 5 minutes (if not longer) to start cutting the chicken so that you don't lose too much chicken juice.
Step 4: Deglaze with chicken broth or stock
Leave the mushrooms in the pan and deglaze with your chicken broth or stock. Once the fond is dissolved, return the chicken to the skillet, and add sun-dried tomatoes, lemon slices, lemon juice, and lemon zest, along with however many of the remaining garlic slices you want to use. As the skillet simmers, taste to see if you need more salt & pepper.
Simmer for however long it takes to cook out the remaining pink from the chicken and let the various flavors get to know each other. Reduce the sauce to almost half. Add corn starch slurry, simmer and stir until the sauce is no longer runny and sticks to the chicken. Kill the heat & serve.
Serving Suggestions
Can be served on pasta, rice, or toast. In the above picture, I served it with broccoli that was steamed for about 5 minutes and drizzled with melted homemade nacho cheese dip I keep around for dipping veggie sticks into.
The Salad is my typical kitchen sink salad that I make with almost any meal.
Fresh spinach
Sliced cucumbers
Cherry tomatoes cut in half
Carrots
(optional) Celery
Some kind of fruit (usually fresh berries, or craisins)
Some kind of nuts
(optional) Some kind of cheese
(optional) one clove of fresh garlic with half a teaspoon of Chicago-style hot giardiniera, minced.
Always toss the salad in a large bowl so you can use less dressing. Please, always make your own dressing. It makes a big difference. These days, the dressing is either aged balsamic vinegar with a nice, fresh extra-virgin olive oil or a nice spicy mustard with an equal amount of honey and a small amount of mayonnaise beaten with a whisk or fork prior to tossing.