Chicken with lemon shallot cream sauce

Chicken with shallots

Adapted from “How Easy Is That?” by Ina Garten. Can you tell how much I love this cookbook?

Ingredients

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

2 tablespoons olive oil

½ cup white wine

1/3 cup fresh lemon juice

¼ cup finely chopped shallots

3 tablespoons cream

1 teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon pepper

4 tablespoons butter

Method

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. In a large, oven-safe skillet or roasting pan, heat oil over medium high heat. Sprinkle chicken breasts with salt and pepper. Place in pan and sear well on both sides. Transfer pan to the oven for 12 to 15 minutes.

Remove chicken from pan and set aside, covered with foil. Place pan back on stove top over medium high heat. Add wine, lemon juice and shallots, scrapping in pan juices. Cook until only a few tablespoons remain. Add the cream, salt and pepper and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and swirl in butter until melted. Serve chicken topped with sauce.

Rating: I've made lots of recipes along these lines, but then again, there's a reason for that. Hard to go wrong with that ingredient list, and this recipe does just fine, with a nice lemon tang. Chicken breasts can be easy to dry out, but this stayed juicy despite my opting (incomprehensibly for me) to swap in skinless breasts for the skin-on variety originally called for.