French Country Chicken
This is a fairly simple yet delectable dish perfect for a cold winter evening meal with the family or served with white wine at any classy/casual party.
This is a fairly simple yet delectable dish perfect for a cold winter evening meal with the family or served with white wine at any classy/casual party.
- 1 pinch salt
- 1/4 cup butter
- 1/2 cup bell pepper diced
- 1 tsp. dried parsley flakes
- 3.75 lbs. chicken breasts boneless and skinless
- 16 oz. pacific natural foods organic french onion soup reserve 1/3 cup of liquid
- 1/2 tsp black pepper (to taste)
- 1 tablespoon fresh garlic, peeled diced
- 1/4 cup apple (any kind- i used gala) diced
- 1/4-1/2 cup button mushrooms (optional) thinly sliced
- apple-smoked provolone cubed
- Carbohydrate 7.333574375 g
- Cholesterol 152.22493809375 mg
- Fat 13.533540650625 g
- Fiber 0.764820826550573 g
- Protein 54.6081895883854 g
- Saturated Fat 7.64431165567708 g
- Serving Size 1 1 Serving (307g)
- Sodium 651.231400234375 mg
- Sugar 6.56875354844943 g
- Trans Fat 1.58248161401042 g
- Calories 381 calories
Step-by-step
- Arrange chicken in a 9"x13" glass baking pan.
- Pour onion soup over chicken, making sue to reserve at least 1/3 cup of liquid.
- In a small bowl, combine parsley, salt and pepper.
- Sprinkle this evenly over the chicken.
- Cover with plastic wrap, and place in refrigerator.
- Allow to marinate for approximately three hours, or overnight.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees, F.
- In a large skillet over medium-high heat, melt butter and stir in 1/3 cup of onion soup.
- Remove chicken from baking pan. (Do not drain soup from the pan, you will need it again.)
- Sear chicken in butter/soup mixture.
- Allow to cool some, before placing it back in the baking pan.
- Cover with tin foil and bake for 20-30 minutes.
- In the large skillet, saute the bell pepper, garlic, and apple in a tablespoon of butter.
- Add the sliced mushrooms, and continue to saute about sixty seconds longer before removing skillet from heat.
- Remove tin foil from chicken and cover with pepper/apple mixture.
- Place back in the oven for about another 10 minutes or until no longer pink in the center of the largest piece of chicken.
- To serve, ladle some of the soup from the pan over each serving and top with cubed provolone.
Golden-brown chicken breasts emerge from a 350-degree oven carrying the savory aroma of rendered butter, sweet onion broth, and melted smoked cheese. Success here hinges entirely on the marinating phase. Submerging the meat in French onion soup for at least three hours allows the sodium to penetrate the protein fibers, which guarantees that the interior stays moist during the high-heat sear. Do not skip this resting period, or the dense chicken breasts will dry out in the oven. When searing the meat in the skillet, maintain medium-high heat to build a proper crust without burning the milk solids in the butter. A wide skillet works best for this step so the pieces do not crowd and steam instead of browning. Adjusting this recipe for smaller or larger households requires careful monitoring of the pan surface area. Halving the ingredients fits easily into a standard ten-inch skillet, while doubling the batch demands working in two distinct batches to preserve the required heat. Once the pan-seared meat returns to the glass baking dish, cover it tightly with foil to trap moisture before finishing the bake. Ladling the reserved soup back over the plates just before serving adds a final layer of rich depth.
