The Everyday Cafe

My people love chicken with pan sauce or pork chops with pan sauce or steak with pan sauce or turkey cutlets with pan sauce. In short: they love pan sauce. But pan sauces have fallen out of favor, apparently too French and too gourmet for everyday cooking. So don’t mention the pan sauce! Just call it homey skillet chicken with potatoes, and make a pan sauce.

Every single person in my family from four-year-old to forty-year-old loves this dinner. Chicken breasts are dredged in flour then sauteed in butter and olive oil. The potatoes are par-cooked in the microwave then crisply roasted in the pan, and finally a quick sauce is made with chicken broth and lemon juice to simmer the chicken to a moist finish.

I’m going to have to buy a bigger saute pan, because the four half-breasts I cooked last night didn’t serve my family of six. I had only one bite of chicken; my seven-year-old ate the rest of my piece. I’m eyeing this All-Clad Master Chef 2 6-Quart Saute Pan. Yes, it’s $250, but I do a lot of sauteeing and this looks perfect. It has a cover, which is important, because if your chicken breasts are thick, you may need to cover up them up in the final step to ensure they cook through without all your sauce evaporating.

Skillet Chicken and Potatoes

4 servings

Adapted from Cook’s Country magazine, April/May 2006

• 1.5 lbs. red potatoes, scrubbed clean and halved if small or quartered if large
• 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 3/4 cup chicken broth
• Juice from half a lemon (about 2 tablespoons)

Mix potatoes with 1 tablespoon oil in microwave-safe bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and microwave 4 to 5 minutes.

Melt 1 tablespoon butter and remaining 2 tablespoons oil in large saute pan over medium-high heat. Season chicken with salt and pepper, then dredge in flour and shake excess off. Add chicken breast halves to pan, putting thick parts towards middle of pan. Cook until browned on each side, 4 to 5 minutes per side. Transfer to a plate and tent with foil.

Add potatoes, cut side down, to pan which should still have some fat in it. Salt liberally. Cook until browned, about 4 to 5 minutes. If you quartered them, put the other cut side down to brown. Transfer to large plate or platter.

Add chicken broth and lemon juice to pan. Scrape up browned bits (called “fond”) from bottom of pan. Return chicken and accumulated juices to pan. Reduce heat and simmer until chicken is cooked through, about 10 minutes.

Put chicken onto platter with potatoes. Whisk remaining tablespoon butter into sauce and pour sauce over chicken and potatoes.

Notes:

• I use Costco frozen chicken breast halves. They’re inexpensive, modestly-sized and don’t require much if any trimming before you use them.
• The original recipe calls for 1 tablespoon chopped fresh sage, added with the broth and lemon juice. I left it out because most children are allergic to green specks of any sort. You could use another fresh herb if you had it — thyme or oregano or rosemary (but not too much rosemary, because it’s so strong).
• Four year old Laura’s comment: “You gotta try the tomatoes! They’re really bad!” Yeah, Laura, if you’re thinking they’re tomatoes they probably do taste bad…