Chicken with French Style Pan Sauce

For Christmas last year, my good friend Emily got me a subscription to Cooking Light magazine.  I have LOVED receiving a brand new issue each month chock full of yummy recipes to try!  Normally, I'm not a big fan of chicken... I just feel like it's boring, but I saw this recipe and thought that it looked absolutely delicious!  I decided to take a chance on chicken and make this recipe... it serves 4 and only has 239 calories per piece of chicken.   Also, it was SUPER easy!  So without further adieu...

Chicken Breasts with Classic French Pan Sauce

* 1 tablespoon olive oil

* 4 bone-in chicken breast halves

* 5/8 teaspoon salt, divided

* 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

* 1/4 cup dry white wine ( I had pinot grigio, so I used that)

* 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard

* 1/4 cup heavy whipping cream ( I used fat free half and half) 

* 1/2 teaspoon all-purpose flour

First, I preheated the oven to 350.  In a pan, I heated up the oil over medium heat.  I patted the chicken dry and seasoned it with salt and pepper.  When the oil was hot, I put the chicken breasts in the pan, skin side down and let them brown up.  After the skin side was nice and brown, I flipped them over and let them brown on the other side.   Since my pan is pretty small, I did it in two batches.

 

Once the chicken breasts were nice and brown, I set them on a cookie sheet and put them in the oven for about 30 minutes.  They didn't have to be cooked all the way through, you brown them just to lock in the flavor and give them a nice crunch.  They will be cooked the rest of the way in the oven.  I used a meat thermometer to make sure the chicken was cooked all the way through, then placed them on a cookie sheet to rest for 10 minutes, while I made the pan sauce.

The pan that the chicken was browned in has all sorts of little brown bits on the bottom.  I used to think that this was burned stuff on the bottom, but really, it's a bunch of yummy flavors and juices trapped and just waiting to be used!

I added the white wine to the pan to start the sauce.  The wine deglazes the pan, meaning that as the sauce forms, the little flavorful brown bits will become unstuck from the pan and incorporate into the dish.  Just stir the wine and the browned bits until everything is released from the bottom and nothing is stuck. 

 

Then, add in the mustard and stir it all up until it is incorporated really well.  Next, in a measuring cup, I mixed the fat free half and half and the flour until there weren't any little flour lumps in it.  Once the mustard was all incorporated, I slowly poured in the half and half/flour mixture.  I used a little baby whisk and the wooden spoon to mix everything together.  I let it all cook together a little bit until it thickened up a tiny bit... then Voila!

 

I served the chicken with a little bit of the sauce and also added a slice of whole wheat French bread that I had just picked up from Whole Foods while it was still warm :)  I also made some creamed kale to go with it.  I wasn't a huge fan of the creamed kale... I much prefer the taste and texture of the creamed spinach  in my Thanksgiving posting.  Overall, the dish was really yummy though!  I think that I'll have to definitely make this again sometime!