Chicken with Sauterne & Mushroom Sauce
- 2-1/2 lb. spring chicken, split in 1/2 & cut into pieces
- Garlic
- Rosemary
- Sauterne or dry white wine
- 8 oz. can mushrooms, drained
- 2 chicken bouillon cubes
- Butter
- Fresh parsley
Boneless breasts are excellent or any combination of chicken pieces will work.
Wash and dry chicken, and pass lightly through flour. Cover bottom of skillet with cooking oil and bring to medium heat, place chicken in pan. Season with salt & pepper and a “pinch” of rosemary leaves. Cook, uncovered until chicken is lightly browned on both sides; drain oil. Add one finely crushed garlic clove. (Have garlic ready to put with chicken immediately after draining the oil.) When garlic starts to brown at the edges, immediately add 4 to 8 ounces sauterne. Add mushrooms. Add chicken bouillon cubes (2), which have been thinned in 1-1/2 cups hot water.
Simmer chicken until tender; take out chicken and put on warming platter. Add one ounce of butter and one teaspoon parsley to sauce. Simmer until cooking spoon dipped in sauce begins to coat slightly. Pour over chicken and serve. Rice is excellent with this dish.
Sauterne is the great white dessert wine. Flavors in sauterne range from apricot, peach, pineapple, to vanilla. The wines are smooth and creamy. A good Sauterne is delicious, golden, and delicate. The famous roasted note comes when Sauterne is a little bit older.
Sauternes are primarily made with the Semillon grape, along with small amounts of sauvignon and muscadelle grown in the Bordeaux Region of France. There are five villages in Graves that make this wine style – Sauternes, Barsac, Preignac, Fargues, and Bommes.
This region is located near a river where the mist and the fog help breed a “noble rot” – pourriture noble called botrytis. Early winemakers found that this rot turned the flavor of the grapes into a rich, honey flavor, with a deep brown color. This wine can age almost indefinitely. More so than many other wine types, vintage in Sauternes is extremely important. The weather conditions can make or break the entire year’s crop in this region.
It is difficult to make a Sauterne. The rot must be of just the right level, and only the most affected grapes are picked. The grapes get up to 14% alcohol in them.
Sure, it’s sweet, but Sauternes are complex enough to pair with all kinds of savory dishes, from Roquefort terrine to fried chicken.
A fine Sauterne can live a lifetime or two. Layer upon layer of honey and exotic fruit, great acidity, and a good jolt of alcohol make it a spectacularly complex dessert wine. Yes, it’s sweet and it’s big, but that doesn’t mean it can be served only with cheese or dessert. The sweetness and richness are balanced out by the acid, making the wine more accommodating than you might think. The right match would be a sip of Sauterne followed by a bite of something, say, buttery and salty. You will find it to be a wonderfully intense experience.
It isn’t hard to pair Sauternes with savory dishes. The idea is to find flavors and textures that will stand up to the wine. For instance, dishes with components that are creamy (cream sauces, high-fat cheeses), salty (cured hams), briny (seafood), mineral (oysters), acidic (lemons), and even spicy (chilies) make fine matches. Similarly, the right textures cut through the wine’s honey-like body: dense, flavorful fruits (pineapples, apricots), beef, meaty fish, and crunchy fried foods all do the job beautifully.
Each of the following dishes makes a superb (if not always a classic) pairing with Sauternes. A terrine of Roquefort and toasted walnuts served with a mustardy apple salad serves the same purpose as the cheese course that so often accompanies the wine. Salty cured ham baked with leeks and crunchy pistachios in a cream sauce evens out the wine’s sweetness. Fried chicken with Sauterne? You bet! With a squeeze of lemon, it’s perfect. And a sauté of pork tenderloin with a spicy haban?ro pan sauce tamed with a touch of Sauterne seems to add even more complexity to the wine.
The point of all these pairings is to help the Sauternes along, to bring out as many of their qualities as you can. The wine becomes a different experience with each of these dishes. So open a bottle–and revel.
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