Sunday, March 13, 2011

Pistachio Encrusted Chicken with Mushroom Sauce

To find this weeks recipe, we went to YELP and looked for bad reviews of local restaurants.   Noted not so good comments from Banderas Restaurant at the Renaissance Hotel, which is a beautiful place to stay.  How difficult is it to mess up Pecan Crusted Chicken?!?!   So I made my own version, using pistachio's instead of pecans and then made a quick mushroom sauce that complimented it very well.

Pistachio Encrusted Chicken with Mushroom Sauce


Ingredients:
  • Chicken breasts
  • 1 C. pistachios, chopped finely
  • 1/2 C saltines, crushed
  • 1/2 C brown bread crumbs
  • salt and pepper
  • 3 T flour
  • 1 egg, whisked
Mushroom Sauce:
  • 2 T olive oil
  • 1 shallot, minced
  • 1 C sliced brown mushrooms
  • 1/3 C heavy cream
  • 3 T butter, cut into pieces
  • salt and pepper to taste
Directions:   Preheat oven to 350 degrees.   In a food processor, chop the pistachios finely.   Add saltines and bread crumbs and mix to combine.   Salt and pepper to taste.   To bread the chicken, pat it dry then run it through the flour, the whisked egg and finally into the pistachio mixture, coating well.  I used a silpat on top of a cookie sheet to bake the chicken in the oven for about 35 minutes.   Make sure it is cooked through at the thickest part.

While the chicken is baking, make your sauce.   In a pan with the olive oil, saute the shallots and mushrooms for 5 minutes on medium heat.   Turn the heat down to med-low and add the cream.   Let simmer for a few minutes and season with salt and pepper to taste.   Remove from heat and add the pieces of butter, whisking as it melts.  

To plate, spoon the sauce over the chicken and serve.   So good!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I just made almond crusted chicken recently and it was soo good, I need to try this now!

Torviewtoronto said...

lovely chicken with mushroom sauce looks flavourful

Unknown said...

I have to admit that I've never tried a nut-crusted chicken before, but this recipe does look good. I love the sauce too (though I'd be alone on that one in this house).