Chicken with Wild Mushrooms (Silver Palette) by Tom

UPDATED 2024

Note:  This year (2024) we added 6 ounces of fresh shitake mushrooms and increased the liquids proportionately.  Highly recommend.  

This mushroom preparation is REALLY good.  It requires time to make, so budget about 2 1/2 hours.  However there is a lot of sitting around time while the dried mushrooms are reconstituting themselves, so don't think you will be working all of the time.  But this mushroom recipe makes this chicken dish superb.

Originally I found this recipe in the "The Silver Palate Cookbook".  What struck me was the clever use of mushrooms with the chicken breasts.  I made it several years ago, but just recently rediscovered it.

I pretty much stuck to the recipe (unusual for me!) and served the dish with sautéed spinach with shallots, and Texmati rice. Turned out quite good, if do say so myself.

 ---Tom

Chicken with Wild Mushrooms 
(Silver Palette)

Serves 6

1 cup lower sodium chicken stock
1 ounce dried mushrooms - I used 1/2 ounce morels and 1/2 ounce chanterelles
1/2 pound fresh wild mushrooms (Wegman's has a good blend of different wild mushrooms already   sliced and packaged)

plus 6 ounces fresh shitake mushrooms, if desired
4 tablespoons sweet unsalted butter
1/4 cup finely chopped shallots
salt and pepper to taste
1/3 cup Port wine
1/3 cup heavy cream
3 boneless chicken breasts, skinned and halved

Before reconstituting the dried mushrooms, be sure to rinse them in cold water to remove any dirt.  Then bring the chicken stock to a boil and pour it over the dried mushrooms in a bowl.  Let stand for 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Melt the butter in a skillet and then gently saute the shallots.  You want them to soften, but not brown.  This will take about 5 minutes.

Drain the dried reconstituted mushrooms, but save the liquid.  You will use it shortly.  Chop up the reconstituted mushrooms and add those along with the fresh mushrooms to the shallots and butter mixture in the skillet.  Saute this mixture for about 10 minutes.  Season with salt and pepper.

Add the reserved mushroom soaking liquid, along with the Port wine and heavy cream.  Simmer this mixture for about 15-20 minutes until it thickens slightly and the liquid has been reduced by about a third to half.  This will intensify the flavors.

Spoon the mushroom mixture into the bottom of a shallow baking dish that has been sprayed with PAM to minimize sticking.  Place the chicken breasts on top of the mushrooms, cover, and bake until finished.

Depending on the thickness of the chicken breast, this will take anywhere from 30 - 50 minutes as you are cooking at a relatively low oven temperature.  Check the chicken with a meat thermometer.

Chef Tom's note:  Here is where I did deviate from the recipe when I made this the second time.  I browned the chicken in a skillet prior to putting it on the mushroom mixture.  The baked chicken does come out looking a little anemic if you don't do this.  So if for no other reason than appearance, I would brown the outside a bit.  Also it will speed up the overall cooking time in the oven.

To make the sauteed spinach I used fresh spinach.  I had about 1/8 cup of shallots left over, so I decided to use them in the spinach.  I sauteed them in about a tablespoon of butter for 4 minutes in a skillet.  Then I added the fresh spinach carefully, and cooked it down without the cover on the skillet.  I stirred the mixture a couple of times while cooking and added some salt and pepper to taste.  Cooking spinach to a wilt only takes a few minutes, so watch carefully.

I also prepared Texmati rice per the instructions on the package with one exception.  Instead of using water, I used chicken broth.  This really adds to the flavor of the rice.

The chicken is good, but what really makes this meal are the mushrooms.  I might even find other uses for them with other meats and poultry they were that good.
Enjoy!
                    ---Tom