Garlic chicken with red wine-balsamic demi-glace and fresh goat cheese crumbles
over a bed of pesto rice, arugula salad and maple-candied walnuts
Sounds good, doesn't it? I wish I had thought it up ahead of time - it would have made this dish a lot easier to cook! But no, this dish evolved as I was cooking, as most of my cooking experiments seem to. I first wanted to make goat cheese-stuffed chicken breasts, but as we had only chicken thighs, I decided to butterfly them instead and toss them in a pan with some fresh garlic and olive oil, and figured I'd crumble the goat cheese over them instead. Mmmmm, that smells good, who doesn't love the smell of fresh garlic?
I really wanted to have this over some pesto rice, but that meant I'd have to wait 20 minutes for the rice....but we are talking about pesto rice here. It's the best starch ever (when pesto pasta won't work)! And what's waiting anyways? Just more time to drink wine! So I put a half scoop of rice on and went to open a bottle.
But, serving some saute'ed chicken over rice is just asking for a sauce or glaze or reduction over it or something, c'mon. And what makes a better reduction than red wine and balsamic vinegar? Red wine, balsamic vinegar, and chicken stock, that's what. So, as the chicken is browning on each side I turn my attention to the wine rack. A quick glance reminds me of the two bottles I recently picked up at Trader Joe's as potential house wines: an '09 Chilean Carmenere and a '10 Argentinian Cabernet. The '10 - probably a little young and tannic for this, but the '09 Carmenere would add a good flavor (and the most important consideration - that's what I wanted to drink). So I splash in a some of that, the broth and the vinegar and let it all simmer down with the lid half off.
Ding! Put the chicken over the bed of pesto rice, toss a handful of mixed greens on the side, reduce the sauce another few minutes to drizzle over everything and you're basically done! Except most important part! Crumble goat cheese over everything with a liberal hand, like a true Democrat.
Notes for next time: Cooking the chicken breasts almost completely through in the garlic oil, then place aside. Add the chicken broth first and cover to finish cooking the chicken. Remove the chicken, add the wine and to de-glaze the pan and the balsamic vinegar immediately after. Then reduce sauce a good degree, possibly toss the chicken back in for a minute? then serve like before. Oh, and actually have those walnuts next time, they sound really tasty in the name.
Until next year!
Grant
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