One of the best-kept secrets of the restaurant world is the staff meal. Before guests arrive, everyone shares lunch or dinner in the kitchen or at tables set up outside the kitchen door. The food is simple but delicious, prepared expertly by the chefs but using more humble ingredients than those served to guests.
I couldn’t have been older than 19 when, on a break from cooking at Maxim’s in Paris, I visited a friend who worked for legendary chef Paul Bocuse in Lyons, France. I arrived late in the afternoon. Invited to sit down to the staff dinner, I was impressed by my first meal from the kitchen of Bocuse.
They served poulet au vinaigre, sauteed chicken with vinegar sauce. I loved how the tanginess of the vinegar so perfectly complemented the poultry’s mild flavor. A few years later, when I was running the kitchen at Ma Maison in Los Angeles, I often put my own adaptation on the menu. All the sophisticated movers and shakers of Hollywood loved the rustic French peasant dish.
I like that it gives vinegar the chance to star. Most of the time cooks think of vinegar as something you use for salad dressings or pickles. But vinegar, and more generally any ingredient high in acidity–including citrus juices and wine–are essential elements of cooking.
Acidity is the backbone of any good sauce, contributing balance and complexity to every drop. Consider how lemon juice blends perfectly with melted butter to make an essential sauce for seafood or veal cutlets. Think about how the balance of rice wine vinegar and soy sauce gives many Asian dishes their memorable flavor. You could also say, simply, that the acidity of vinegar opens up the taste buds to all the many flavors of a dish.
Try it for yourself in my version of that French favorite, which includes mushrooms for an extra dimension of robust flavor. (Serve with mashed potatoes to soak up the good sauce.) Use fresh shiitakes if your market has them, trimming off the tough stems before cutting the caps into 1/4-inch slices–or substitute regular white mushrooms, cremini mushrooms or portobellos.
But the vinegar does matter. Don’t buy generic cooking vinegar. Instead, look for good-quality red-wine vinegar; or, for its appealingly earthy taste, sherry vinegar. Feel free to experiment with other vinegars to discover a new world of delicious flavors that you might just have been taking for granted.
Sauteed chicken breasts with vinegar sauce and mushrooms
Preparation time: 45 minutes
Cooking time: 45 minutes
Yield: 6 servings
6 large boneless chicken breast halves, skin on
1 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground pepper
3 tablespoons flour
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) unsalted butter, cut into tablespoons
3 medium shallots, minced
1 tablespoon chopped fresh tarragon leaves
1 cup dry white wine
1/4 cup red wine vinegar or sherry vinegar
1 can (14 1/2 ounces) plus 1 cup canned chicken broth
1 pound shiitake, cremini, portobello, or other mushrooms, stemmed, sliced
1 tablespoon minced fresh chives
1. Season the chicken breasts with salt and pepper to taste; sprinkle lightly with flour. Set aside.
2. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat; add the oil and 1 tablespoon of the butter. Add the chicken breasts, skin side down. Cook, turning once, until golden brown on both sides and just cooked through, about 12 minutes. Remove to a platter; cover to keep warm.
3. Drain the fat from the pan; reduce the heat to medium. Stir in 1 tablespoon of the butter. Add the shallots and tarragon; cook, stirring, 1 minute. Stir in the white wine and vinegar, scraping the bottom of the pan. Increase heat to high. Cook until liquid reduces to 3 tablespoons, about 10 minutes.
4. Add the chicken broth; heat to a boil. Cook until the liquid is slightly thickened, about 10 minutes. Reduce the heat to very low; whisk in 8 more tablespoons of the butter, one piece at a time, to form a creamy sauce. Return the chicken breasts to the pan; cook over low heat, until heated through, about 5 minutes.
5. Melt the remaining 2 tablespoons of the butter over high heat in a large saucepan; stir in the mushrooms. Cook, stirring, until mushroom edges turn golden, about 5 minutes. Stir the mushrooms into the chicken. Transfer the chicken, mushrooms and sauce into a serving dish; garnish with chives.
Nutrition information per serving:
484 calories, 63% of calories from fat, 33 g fat, 17 g saturated fat, 142 mg cholesterol, 9 g carbohydrates, 34 g protein, 825 mg sodium, 1 g fiber
