Grilled Chicken with White Wine Sauce

In many cookery shows, I had seen recipes using white wine, but never gave much attention to them, as they were mainly non veg. Though I am a vegetarian, I cook chicken for my hubby (story here). A friend had gifted us with a bottle of nice white wine, when he had visited us last Saturday. It was indeed a great wine and though we drank most of it we were still left with 1/2 cup of wine. So thought of using it in my cooking.

I generally cook chicken on special occasions or when somebody is visiting us, but this time I cooked for the sake of experimenting with white wine. I read couple of recipes on few website and on youtube And the one I got convinced to adapt from was Grilled Chicken Cordon Bleu with White Wine and Lemon Cream Sauce.

The base of the recipe is same but I included some and excluded some ingredients according to our taste. I excluded Ham as hubby doesn’t like it and added milk, mushrooms, chilli flakes, Master food’s Italian Herbs and Mixed Spice. I also cooked the grilled chicken in the sauce for a minute instead of just pouring the sauce over the grilled chicken.

Ingredients:

2 Chicken Breasts

2 tsp Honey

2 tsp Dijon Mustard

2 tsp Olive oil

2 Cheese slice ( i used Gouda with paprika)

Salt and Pepper

Sauce:

2-3 mushroom, sliced

1 small onion, finely chopped

1 tsp Butter

1 tsp Oil

Zest of ½ lemon

½ lemon

½ cup white wine

½ cup milk

½ cream

Salt, Pepper, Chilli Flakes, Italian Herbs and Mixed Spice.

Method:

Chicken

1. Preheat the oven to 220 degrees.
2. Slice the chicken breast from the side to open it, but don’t cut till the end.
3. Brush both the opened sides of the chicken breasts with oil, honey and Dijon mustard.
4. Place the chicken slice. I had a wedge of 100gms Paprika Gouda cheese, so i put the cheese shavings on both side.
5. Sprinkle the salt and pepper and fold the both sides of the chicken breasts back to the original shape.
6. Brush the outer side of the chicken breast with oil and grill it in the oven for 20-15 minutes or until it turns white and grill marks appear and change the side first after 15 minutes.
   
   
   
   

Sauce:

1. Heat oil in a pan add butter.
2. Add onion and sauté till it turn pink and then add mushrooms and cook it on medium heat.
3. Add lemon zest, mix. Add lemon juice, mix and White wine , simmer it till it liquid remains half.
4. Add milk and cream and cook it until slightly thick but don’t let it boil.
5. Sprinkle Salt, Pepper, Chilli Flakes, Italian Herbs and Mixed Spice and Mix.

Finally add the cheese grilled chicken to the sauce and let it cook it sauce for a minute. You may slice the chicken if you want to and then add it to the sauce. I added the whole breast.

Plate the chicken breast and pour the remaining sauce over it.

Serve it hot with baguette.

My husband loved it!! i had served him both the breasts but as they were too heavy he could eat only one, and soI froze the other!!!

Quick and yet Tasty Biryani

Well, I know the Quick and Biryani never match! As traditionally Biryani is slowly cooked over charcoal pit. No doubt about the taste that comes out. But these days we don't have luxury of time and yet we want to eat the tasty food. Definitely. One option is to go out and there are couple good restaurants in almost every city where you can get good Biryani. Unfortunately here, we don't get good indian food or it has been dutchised! (like indianised).. which is quite bland as per Indian standard.

As i mentioned in one of my previous blog that i am veg. and cook non-veg. for my hubby. I gave a shot to this recipe of Boneless Chicken Biryani found at sanjeev kapoor.com. with minor variation in ingredients and cooking time as proportionate to my requirements.

Ingredients:

300 Gms of Boneless chicken (Chicken Breasts)

1 cup Basmati Rice (soak them for at least 30 mins)

3 tbsp Desi Ghee (Clarified Butter) or Vegetable Oil

1 " Cinnamon Stick

1 Bay leaf

3-4 Cloves

2 green Cardamom

1 Black Cardamom

1 tsp Cumin Seeds

1 Onion(medium), sliced

2 Green Chilies, Slit

1 Tomato, Chopped

1/2 tsp Turmeric Powder

1/2 tsp Coriander Powder

1/2 tsp Amchur( dried Mango Powder)

1/2 tsp Cumin Powder

Salt to taste

1/2 tbsp Ginger paste

1/2 tbsp Garlic paste

1/2 tsp Red Chili Powder

1/2 cup Yogurt thick ( i used Greek yogurt)

2 Onion (medium), sliced and fried brown

A few Mint Leaves, washed and torn

A few Coriander leaves, Washed and torn

1/2 tsp Garam Masala

1/3 cup Milk

A few drops of Rose Water

1/2 Tbsp Raisins

Method:

1. Boil the rice (3/4 cooked) and set aside.

2. Cut the chicken into 1" pieces

3. Heat the 2 Tbsp Ghee/oil in a deep pan. Add whole spices (Cumin, Cinnamon, Cardamoms, Cloves and Bay Leaves) and saute for a minute.

4. Add Sliced Onion and saute until transparent

5. Add green chilies and chicken cubes and saute

6. Add turmeric, Amchur, coriander and cumin powder, tomatoes, ginger n garlic paste, Salt and mix.

7. Add Red Chilli Powder and Yogurt . Mix well and let it cook for a while.

8. Spread half of the fried Onions followed by half of the bowled Rice on the above mixture.

9 Spread another layer with rest of fried Onion, half of the Mint and Coriander Leaves.

10. Add the remaining boiled Rice followed by remaning mint and coriander leaves.

11. Sprinkle Garam Masala, Rose water, Milk,Raisins and 1 tbsp of desi ghee.

12. Cover the pan and let the biryani cook for about 10 minutes on low heat.

13. with in time you would see little smoke filled with aroma come out of lid, which means the Biryani is ready!

14. Mix it well...

I serve it with Raita, which i make by gently whipping the yogurt, add Rock salt, raita powder and roasted cumin powder.

Last Sunday, when our dutch friend had come then also i had prepared Biryani. Since they can't take spices so I had put a pinch of red chilli, coriander and cumin powder instead of 1 tsp and didn't slit the green chilies. And instead of Raita, served only yogurt to balance the spice. Well the aroma of whole spices, rose water, ghee, mint and coriander leaves fills you completely. The way non smoker are passive smoker when somebody smokes in front of them, likewise being veg. with the aroma i also become a 'passive eater'!