Greek chicken

Posted on September 19th, 2007 by Jeff

The pictures on this dish are still not where I want them to be. New camera and trying to figure it out is never a fun thing.

I was also rushed when I did the presentation picture since I was cooking for a group of people and well they would not start eating till I sat down at the table. I thought it was cruel for me to be snapping pictures while they stared at food that was getting cold in front of them. All and all the dish turned out great.

If you get everything cut up, chicken dredged, liquids measured, spices out, and everything easily accessible before you turn the stove on any dish should be a walk in the park. On a side note for me prep is my favorite part. It is relaxing and a great chance to turn the stereo on and listen to music while chopping or measuring.

I also like to put everything in bowls that are going together. For example, the onion, celery, and green pepper are all going into the pan at the same time so they will go into the same bowl however, the garlic is going to be added independant of any other ingredient so it needs it own bowl. Below is a picture of my station before I am ready to get the fire going.

For this dish we are going to need the following.

Boneless skinless chicken breast
Flour for dredging the chicken
1 onion diced finely
1 rib of celery diced finely
1 green pepper diced finely
3 cloves of garlic chopped
4 ounces of mushrooms sliced thinly
can of artichokes drained and quartered
1/2 cup of sun dried tomatos (if you get the ones packed in oil make sure to wash them to get most of the oil off)
1/3 cup of olives quartered
Cup of wine
TB of fresh lemon juice
Teaspoon of honey
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon dried oregeno
Kosher salt
Pepper
Olive oil

Your bowls for your ingredients should lay out like:

onion, celery, green pepper
garlic
mushrooms
artichokes, olives, and sun dried tomato

After all that it is time to dredge the chicken which is just dusting the chicken with flour. For me I like to use two plates with one of the plates having a pile of flour on it and a couple of paper towels. I remove a chicken breast from the package, wrap it in paper towels to dry it, season the chicken breast with salt and pepper, roll it around in the flour, shake the excess off, and place it on the second plate to rest.

Now that the chicken is dredged and everything is around it is time to start. First step is get a pan going over high heat. Put some oil in the pan and add the chicken breasts. Make sure not to overcrowd the pan so only add a couple at a time. Let the chicken cook on each side for 3-4 minutes or until brown. Remove and place on a plate to rest.

After the chicken has been browned add the bowl containing the onion, celery, and green pepper to the pan. Lightly salt and pepper and stir for 4-5 minutes or until softened. After it is softened add the bowl containing garlic and stir for about a minute. We do not want the garlic to burn.

After that add the bowl containing the mushrooms and lower the heat to medium. We want to cook the moisture out of the mushrooms and this will take 7-10 minutes.

After the moisture has been cooked out of the mushrooms add the wine and cook till reduced by 1/2. Make sure you scrape the pan in order to get everything that is stuck on the bottom of the pan unstuck.