Chicken Mirepoix

[Mike Nolan]

Chicken Mirepoix

This is my go-to chicken recipe these days.

Yield
3 servings

Ingredients

3 bone-in chicken breasts
2 medium or 1 large onions
4-5 ribs celery
3 carrots (or 2 handfuls of baby carrots)
2 tablespoons softened butter
1/2 cup dry white wine, dry sherry or dry vermouth (optional), white verjuice should work, too.
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1/4 teaspoon celery seed

(Traditionally, mirepoix is 2 parts onion, 1 part celery, 1 part carrot, I usually wind up with about 10 ounces of onions, 5 ounces of celery and 5 ounces of carrots.)

Instructions

Heat oven to 375 degrees.

Skin chicken breasts, salt and pepper bone side only for now, set aside.

Dice or thinly slice onions, chop celery into thin pieces, julienne carrots. (If using baby carrots, which I think are sweeter, I quarter them down the length then chop them into 3-4 pieces.)

Mix onions, celery and carrots in a bowl, then place in bottom of 9 x 12 glass baking dish. Pour in the wine, sherry or vermouth, if using it. Sprinkle on basil and celery seed.

Place chicken breasts on top of vegetables, bone side down. Coat chicken breasts with butter, then salt and pepper them.

Cover pan with aluminum foil or parchment. (Keeps the surface of the skinned chicken from getting too tough.)

Bake at 375 degrees for around 75 min or until internal temperature of chicken is at least 170 degrees and the onions are soft. Allow to stand for 5 minutes before serving.

Recently I experimented with using covering the chicken with cabbage leaves instead of foil or parchment. Seemed to work pretty good at keeping the breasts from getting tough, probably added a little flavor, too.

Spread the word

      

  

  

[Mike Nolan]

I've always thought this dish needs something, like a sauce, I think I came up with it last week.

First, I deboned the chicken breasts (saving them in the freezer for my next batch of chicken stock) and left out the wine and the basil and celery seed.

Then, while the chicken was baking (covered with parchment so it didn't dry out), I sauteed in butter and chicken stock some red, orange and yellow peppers that I had cut into long thin strips plus some mushrooms that I had sliced, adding the mushrooms after the peppers had softened, about 10 minutes. After the chicken had baked for about 40-45 minutes (at 400 degrees) and was registering an internal temperature of at least 160 degrees, I covered it with slices of fontina cheese and put the peppers and mushrooms on top of that, then baked it for another 10 minutes.

My wife's only comment was that there wasn't enough of the stuff on top, so next time I'll use more cheese, more peppers and more mushrooms. For 3 large chicken breasts I'd probably use 3 medium peppers and 10 ounces of mushrooms, plus enough cheese to fully cover each breast.

[Author]

Posts