ON the ROAD TO CAMBRIA: CHICKEN DIABLE
This week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe choice is Chicken Diable breasts but the organic chicken thighs in my freezer suggested I make a minor change to the recipe. Which, I did.
This classic dish, a perfect choice for Sunday night’s dinner while watching the Academy Awards, also yielded enough leftovers to keep my engine running during my drive to California last Monday. I needed to do research at both the Reagan and Nixon Presidential Libraries and could combine that work with a short stop in Cambria, visiting Colorado friends who had set up camp there for the Winter.
“Diable is the French word for devil,” Dorie says, “and when you see it on the menu you can be pretty sure that the dish includes mustard, usually a strong Dijon mustard which is about as hot as condiments in the French kitchen get.”
Like many of Dorie’s recipes, she’s taken a traditional French dish and turned it into simple without losing any of its taste. I pounded chicken cutlets lightly before slipping them into a large skillet, coated with butter and olive oil, to sauté. Then I transferred them to a 200 degree oven for warmth before making the sauce.
Using the same skillet I softened finely chopped shallots, garlic and seasonings before adding the dry white wine and heavy cream. After the sauce reached a boil, I added mustard and Worcestershire sauce and stirred to blend. Once the sauce was seasoned correctly, I removed the chicken from the oven, plated it and poured the mustard sauce over the top. It was delicious.
For my trip west the next day, I cut the remaining Chicken Thighs Diable into long strips and packed them into Tupperware. Along with a few carrots and celery sticks, they provided a flavorful and protein-filled treat for the drive.
If you’d like to try Dorie’s very tasty recipe, go here. To see what others thought about this week’s recipe, go to our French Fridays with Dorie link.