Serendipity in cooking is a good thing. Highlights of last night's dinner:
Chicken Breasts in Mustard-Beer Sauce
- 1 lb chicken breasts (basically one breast split in half; you can cut up the chicken if you prefer)
- olive oil
- 1 bottle of Alaskan Amber (or any beer in the amber/pilsner family. I prefer Alaskan Amber over canned beer because of step 4)
- 1/4 cup big-grained mustard (like Plochmann's Natural Stone Ground. You want the seeds in there. I think I used a deli mustard that had a little horseradish)
- 1/2 teaspoon thyme
- grind or two of black pepper
- 1 tbsp vinegar (optional -- I used white balsamic because it was closest at hand)
- Put in a little bit of olive oil into skillet and heat it to med-high or so.
- Add chicken and brown it on each side.
- Reduce heat. Open bottle of Alaskan amber and pour about half of it into the skillet. As it boils try to get some of the crusties off the bottom. Add the mustard, thyme, and pepper (and optional vinegar). Stir.
- Increase heat again and boil down the mustard-beer-thyme until the sauce thickens, stirring occasionally. Drink the remaining beer while you're waiting (See? You want Alaskan Amber here!)
- Serve with a nice salad.
2 pints of strawberries with their tops cut off and then slivered, a couple of tablespoons of balsamic vinegar, and some sugar to taste. Toss. Eat. Heaven.
