Chicken with Mushroom Sherry Sauce

I really want to try to eat Paleo but I’m having a hard time coming up with things to make.  A lot of the recipes I see are some cut of meat with this sauce, or some other meat with another sauce, that to me seems like it would get old quick, and what do you eat with it? I always feel like my plate looks empty unless I have some kind of meat, side, and vegetable.  Besides, I don’t think I can eat enough meat not to still be hungry or need more calories if I don’t have any sides.  So for my first week’s attempt I basically just went to the grocery store and bought a ton of different fruits and vegetables and thought, I’ll just figure out what to do with all this later.  In spite of my lack of planning, last night’s meal I think turned out pretty well, I was pleased with it.

3 chicken breasts
8 oz sliced mushrooms
1 small yellow onion, chopped
2 tbs butter
2 tbs flour
¼ tsp paprika
¼ tsp marjoram
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper
½-3/4 cup sherry
Salt and pepper to taste for chicken


Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Season the chicken with salt and pepper and bake on a broiler pan for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, melt 1 tbs butter in a skillet over medium-low heat.  Add the rough chopped onions and cook for about 10 minutes, stirring frequently, until softened and browning but not frying.  If your pan is too hot the onions will fry and we want them to caramelize.  Add the mushrooms and allow to cook for another ~10 minutes until browned.  Once the mushrooms are cooked remove the mixture to a plate.  Add the remaining butter to the skillet with the flour and seasonings, stir and cook for one minute.  Don’t let them burn.  Increase the heat to medium, add ½ cup sherry, stir and cook for one minute to cook off the alcohol.  I use Tio Pepe and I think it’s pretty good, but it is the only brand of sherry I’ve ever cooked with, so there may be something better, I don’t know.  If you are clueless about what to buy that is what I recommend.  Return the mushroom mixture to the skillet and stir to coat well.  If the sauce has thickened up and you want it a little runnier add some more sherry a couple tbs at a time and allow it to cook off the alcohol and thicken a little before you decide to add some more, do this until it gets to the desired consistency.

Top the chicken with the sauce and serve.  I had this with peas, carrots, and broccoli and cinnamon apples.

Chicken and mushroom sauce serves 3, 430 calories, 19 g fat
All in all I was pretty pleased with this.  I liked the flavor of the sauce quite a bit and will definitely make this again.  This was one of those dishes that wasn’t terribly complicated but tasted like it.  I have noticed pan sauces are like that, they seem to add a lot to a piece of meat without being as complicated as you’d expect.

Red Wine Pan Sauce

Saturday night we went to the ballet, I know I have the greatest husband in the whole world, and instead of going out to an expensive restaurant that makes food only marginally better than what I can do if I put my mind to it, I decided to cook instead.  I decided to make venison with a red wine pan sauce and potatoes with caramelized onions and holy cow I was pretty dang impressed with how this turned out.  This wasn’t that much work and it definitely tasted as good as any restaurant we would have gone to, and for a fraction of the cost.  This pan sauce recipe is a slight adaptation from Cooks Illustrated and of course you can serve this over beef.



1 tsp brown sugar
2 tsp yellow onion, minced
1 bay leaf
½ cup dry red wine
½ cup chicken stock
2 tsp balsamic vinegar
½ tsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp thyme
1 ½ tbs butter
Salt and pepper to taste

In the skillet that you cooked your steaks in, with it still hot, remove it from the heat and add the sugar and onion to the empty skillet.  Using the pan’s residual heat, cook, stirring frequently, until the onion is slightly softened and browned and sugar is melted, about 45 seconds.
Return the skillet to medium heat, add the wine, broth, and bay leaf.  Bring to a boil and scrape up the browned bits in the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon.  Boil until the liquid is reduced to about ¼ cup, about 4 minutes.  Stir in vinegar and mustard and cook at medium heat to blend the flavors, about 1 minute.
Take the pan off the heat and whisk in the butter until melted and sauce is thickened and glossy.  Add thyme and season to taste with salt and pepper.  Remove bay leaf and spoon sauce over steaks.  Serve immediately.

If you cook your sauce down too far and end up with nothing you can add more liquid to it before the butter step, just let that cook down to get the volume you need and to give it time to meld the flavors.
This sauce I thought was absolutely amazing; it completely transformed my venison steaks into a restaurant quality main dish in my opinion.  My husband suggested that we try to bottle it.
All of these steps did go by really quickly and pretty much all involved me being over the pan, so I had to have my husband read off the steps as I got to them, and I recommend you do the same if you can, otherwise I can see how you could panic and screw up pretty easily if you have to run to your recipe to read the next step every time.