Recipe: Purple Chicken

How's your weekend? Hanging in there? Good.

I have been completely inspired by Julie Powell's book Julie and Julia. Cooking with butter and without guilt is a whole lot of fun. Although--as a busy mom--I still need to be able to have an entire dinner ready in 40 minutes or less (Julie and her husband rarely ate before 10 PM when she made dinner), she definitely has inspired me to get the hell into the kitchen and cook my f*ck*n heart out!

Here's a dish I made up that Mike named Purple Chicken. He said it had a 100% family approval rating, which means that everybody (including Emily and Thomas) ate it and liked it. And they liked it not in a, "You'll eat this and like it!" kind of way, but in a genuine, "Mommy, this good!" kind of way. I was living Every Cook's dream dinner moment. Thanks for the inspiration, Julie!

Purple Chicken

4 chicken breasts, pounded to 1/4 inch thick

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 red onion, slivered

3 T butter

2 T olive oil

1/4 cup red wine

1 t chopped dried tarragon

Salt

Pepper

1. Heat large skillet over medium high heat.
   
2. Add olive oil and 1 T butter to pan.
   
3. When butter melts, add slivered red onion. Saute onion for two minutes.
   
4. Add minced garlic. Saute onion and garlic for another minute.
   
5. Salt and pepper chicken breasts. Add to pan. Cook three minutes on each side.
   
6. Add red wine and tarragon to pan. Cover and reduce heat to medium. Cook until chicken is done, another 4-8 minutes? (Test with knife to make sure chicken no longer pink in center -- try not to overcook them like I did.)
   
7. Remove breasts from pan. Put on plate and cover to keep warm.
   
8. Add 2 T butter to yummy stuff in pan. Raise heat to high and cook for several minutes until it reduces into a saucy mixture and/or you no longer can stand the delicious smell.
   
9. Serve chicken with sauce.
   

Serves 4 people on a first date or 2 people married for years.

I served my Purple Chicken with a spinach and noodle dish (egg noodles tossed with grated parmesan cheese and spinach sauteed in onion, garlic, basil, and oregano). The meal probably goes nicely with a dry white wine, although I wouldn't know; all we had in the front hall wine closet was Berringer White Zinfandel.

Happy weekend, friends.

Technorati tags: Chicken, Recipe