Anne- Chicken | cookingwithart.com

Sticking with the Chicken theme this week I decided to make the “Smothered Chicken” on pg 136 of Back to the Table. I made a mistake and didn’t read the description in detail ahead of time: I should have planned to make this one when I had more time instead of on a week night. It involvd lots of chopping and prep…and I bought pre-chopped onions in the produce section (I HATE chopping onions).

I made this with split chicken breast instead of a whole chicken as we really do not eat dark meat so a whole chicken goes to waste and doesn’t last beyond one sitting. I removed the chicken from the bone, cut the breasts in half and made 8 small breast portions for this dish and saved the extra meat for another meal.

Since I was using breast off the bone, I knew I wouldn’t need to cook with everything combined for as long as the recipe called for- the chicken was mostly cooked after its time in the skillet. I simmered for 15 minutes total as opposed to the suggested 40 when using chicken on bone.

Skimming the fat was a great call from Art- and even after I did it was still a little greasy. Served over white basmati rice.

End result? Tasty and filling dish but not one I plan to make often. It just has more steps than I care to tackle regularly.

organized ingredients

the sausage is browning!

green pepper and onion

ready for the oven

For the past several years I’ve made a few dishes for our annual Holiday party with my best girlfriends and basic “hangover” brunch fare has been the traditional hit. In 2011 I saw this recipe of Art Smith’s in People Magazine and I decided to try it out. Good thing I tested it before I served to the hungry crowd- because it was extremely soggy and runny. I skipped the dish for the party and stuck with the familiar sausage/ cheese and hask brown casseroles.

When Karen and I decided to start cooking our way together through Back to the Table, I stumbled across this recipe on p 87 and decided to give it a go. Again.

This time around I made it in a 9×13 dish instead of my smaller 8×12. I also made sure I used plenty of bread, which I think I cut back on in December.

The end result after 1 1/4 hours of prep and 45 min to cook the next day…it still looked a little runny but it didn’t taste that way. I do wish I had added a bit more chicken and will make sure I do going forward. The amount of bread in the dish was not equal to the meat and I found my self digging around for chicken chunks. This dish lasted for up to 3 days and fed me multiple meals, as well as my husband and a baby sitter.

Worth the effort? I don’t think I will be making it again until I have exhausted alternate options for brunch fare.