Chicken with Artichokes and Olives in a Bread Bowl – One of My Favorite Recipes From my Mom

Tags

Artichoke Hearts, bread bowl, Chicken, marsala garlic, Olives, white wine, wine reduction

My mom wasn’t known for her cooking skills, but she had a few recipes that I just loved! Unfortunately, I lost her recipe that inspired this dish, but I faked it and it turned out wonderfully! This is basically chicken in a white wine reduction sauce that is place in a hollowed out bread bowl. The bread soaks up the sauce and is so delicious! You eat the chicken and tear apart the bread and have a piece with your dinner. Yummm!!!! This is a visually beautiful dish and fun to eat. It’s perfect for impressing your dinner guests!

This is a recipe you could play with. You may have your own saucy meat dish that would be good served in the bread bowl. Give it a try! In this picture, you might be able to see that I actually didn’t have a bread bowl, but I used sliced French bread. I had some bread on hand that had gotten a tiny bit stale and was starting to harden. It was perfect for this dish! The sauce soaking into the bread softened it right up and gave it a delicious flavor.

Chicken With Artichokes and Olives in a Bread Bowl

1 pound boneless, skinless chicken thighs or breasts

2 tbsp olive oil

1 cup white wine (I only had Marsala wine on hand, so I used that, but you could use your favorite white wine for cooking)

2 cups chicken broth

1 tbsp Dijon mustard

1/2 box of frozen artichoke hearts

1 – 4 oz can black olive slices, drained

2 garlic cloves, minced or pressed

Salt and pepper

1 large or 2 small sourdough rounds, cut off the top and hollow out or several slices of French or sourdough bread

Pour olive oil in a skillet and heat over medium high heat. Once pan is hot, place chicken in pan. Season with salt and pepper. Brown the meat on each side about 4-5 minutes each. Reduce the heat under your pan to medium and remove chicken from pan and place on an oven-safe plate, it can still be pink in the middle. Place chicken in a 275 degree oven to keep warm while you deglaze your pan. Pour wine and chicken broth in pan and stir to remove chicken bits from the bottom of the pan. Whisk in Dijon mustard, add artichoke hearts, olives and garlic and stir. Simmer sauce and allow to reduce. This should take about 30 minutes. Add chicken back to pan and continue to simmer and spoon sauce over chicken, so it can take on some of that wonderful flavor. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cook chicken another 10 minutes or so. Place your bread in an oven-safe baking pan. Transfer chicken into baking pan in the bread bowl or over bread slices and then pour sauce and all contents of your skillet over the bread, trying to cover equally so all parts of the bread will soak up sauce. Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes. Ensure your chicken is cooked through, but don’t burn your bread.

Enjoy!

Chicken or Pork in a Wine Reduction: The Joys of Deglazing a Pan!

Tags

Chicken, Cooking, deglaze, Food, recipe, sauce, stainless steel pan, wine reduction

  
Somehow I got it in my head that non-stick pans were the be all, end all of cookware. I mean why would I want to spend time scrubbing a pan? OK, non-stick pans definitely have their place in the kitchen! I wouldn’t want to cook eggs without them, but there is something about deglazing a stainless steel pan and making a wine reduction sauce that is just to die for! And surprise, surprise! When you deglaze a pan all those sticky meat bits on the bottom come right off! Then you just pop that pan in the dishwasher! Easy peasy!This is not so much an exact recipe. This is usually something I fake and it comes out great, so I’ll list out the steps and I think you’ll find it easy to make. I hope you enjoy!

1. Add a tablespoon or two of olive oil or spray the pan real good with non-stick spray

2. Heat the pan over medium-high heat and place your chosen meat in the pan. I usually use either boneless, skinless chicken (I usually buy thighs, as they’re cheaper) or pork chops (boneless or bone-in is fine). Brown the meat on each side. It can still be red in the middle, because it will cook more as the process goes on.

  
3. Reduce the heat under your pan to medium and remove the meat from the pan, while still pink in the middle and put on an oven safe plate. Place in a 200 degree oven while you make your wine reduction sauce.

4. Here’s where you deglaze your pan! Get on this quickly, so the meat bits stuck to the pan don’t burn. Pour in 1 ½ cup wine (white or red, depending on the flavor sauce you want) and 1 ½ cup chicken broth (I use the fat free, low sodium variety) and stir scraping the yummy bits off the bottom of the pan adding flavor to your sauce. You will get this wonderful HSSSSS sound when the wine hits the hot pan. Notice the sauce is 50/50 on the liquids, so this is an easy recipe to increase or decrease. Then you just adjust the other ingredients accordingly.

5. To the pan with the sauce, stir or whisk in one tablespoon of Dijon mustard and add ½ tsp salt and ¼ tsp pepper.

6. Stir in 2 chopped or pressed garlic cloves and continue to stir.

7. Optional: If you like, you can also add a sliced leek (as shown in my picture) and/or sliced mushrooms (I prefer baby bellas).

8. You want the sauce to reduce by about 1/2, so the flavors will intensify. It should take 30-40 minutes.

9. Remove the meat from the oven and add to the pan with the sauce, cook meat spooning sauce over the meat until meat is cooked all the way through. This might take an additional 15 minutes or so.

10. Serve the meat and sauce over rice or pasta. This goes really nice with a simple risotto. I guess that will be a future blog post!

This is one of our family’s favorite dishes. I hope you and your loved ones enjoy it as well!!!