Modified French Chicken

I have this photocopy of a photocopy of a recipe that my mom cut out of a newspaper some 20+ years ago. I remember she would make a slightly altered version using white wine instead of red, fresh mushrooms instead of canned, and corn starch to thicken it, instead of tapioca. I have made it a number of times and each time I deviate a little further from the recipe. Well, the produce box this week had mushrooms in it and someone in the co-op posted a photo of mushrooms on some pasta and it reminded me of this recipe. So, that's what we had for dinner last night! As you can see, the original recipe was a crock pot recipe; If you use a crock pot you can just put the chicken in, put the chopped up veggies and other ingredients in the pot and turn it on low-medium. Stir occasionally. And it's done in 7+ hours. When I have time, I do cook it that way but, I didn't have that luxury this time. The following instructions are for stove-top preparation.

You will need:

1-2 lbs of chicken (I used 4 chicken breasts)

Mushrooms

Carrots

Cherry or Grape Tomatoes

1/2c Wine (white or red, both are good)

2T Butter (I used 1T of butter and 1T of my pepper oil)

2c Chicken Broth

1/2-1 Sweet Onion

3 cloves of Garlic

The leaves from a few sprigs of fresh Thyme (or 1/2t dried)

1 Bay Leaf

Corn Starch or Flour to thicken.

Salt to taste

Start by chopping up your garlic and onion into very small pieces.  Put that in a pot with the butter/oil and turn on low. Finish chopping the remaining veggies into bite size pieces set them aside for now. 

Turn up the burner to medium and when the pot is hot and the garlic and onions are sizzling add the chicken. Turning after a couple minutes, once the first side is just barely cooked. Then, you can add the all the remaining ingredients (except the corn starch/flour and about 1/4c of the chicken broth, save those till the very end). When it starts to boil turn the burner back to low.

I let this simmer on the stove for about an hour and a half while I finished up some homework. When everything in the pot is cooked through is long enough, but the longer you let it cook, the more tender the chicken will be and the more flavorful the sauce. I like to cook it as long as I can to get as close to the crock-pot-chicken as possible. Anyway, when it's about done mix the reserved 1/4c of broth with 1-2T corn starch or flour. I used flour this time, because I was out of corn starch; but I prefer the corn starch. Once mixed, add it to the pot, stir, and let simmer a couple more minutes until the sauce has thickened.

 I usually serve this over pasta, but I have also made it with rice and that was good too. Give it a try, let me know what you think!