Grilled Chicken in White Wine Mushroom Sauce

I bought mushrooms because I love them in my pastas. But then I had so many mushrooms and I didn't know what to do with it. I remember one day, I made a random mushroom sauce with some heavy cream, milk, and it actually was half-decent. So I tried to look for a good one and this one stood out because it said White Wine in it and I've been dying to cook with wine.

Courtesy of Sunny Anderson

Ingredients

Brine:

• 2 lb of boneless chicken breast (with skin)
  
• 4 cups water
• 1 lemon quartered and juiced
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup salt
• 4 (6-ounce) boneless chicken breasts with skin
• 4 drops liquid smoke
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
• 8 sage leaves
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper

For White Wine Mushroom Sauce:

• 3 tablespoons butter
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 sweet onion, chopped
• 8 ounces baby bella mushrooms, sliced
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/2 cup semi-dry white wine
• 1 1/2 cups chicken stock
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

Optional:

• Baby carrots
• Potatoes
  

Directions

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

In a large bowl mix together water, lemon juice, sugar and salt until dissolved. Add lemon quarters and chicken. Marinate for 30 minutes. Remove from marinade and pat dry. Preheat a grill pan over medium heat. Massage 1 drop of liquid smoke into each chicken breast. Salt and pepper generously then rub 1 tablespoon butter over and under skin of each chicken breast, placing 2 sage leaves underneath the skin. Place on hot grill, skin side down, until skin is golden brown, about 5 minutes. Transfer chicken to a baking sheet and bake until cooked through, about 25 minutes.

Meanwhile for the white wine mushroom sauce: In a large saute pan over medium heat, melt 2 tablespoons butter with olive oil. Add onions, mushrooms and cayenne pepper. Saute until onions are translucent and mushrooms are tender, about 8 minutes. Add wine and reduce until it's almost evaporated. Add chicken stock and simmer until reduced by one third. In a small bowl press together remaining butter and flour with fingertips until well blended, then slowly add to the sauce while stirring with a wooden spoon. Simmer until sauce resembles loose gravy, about 5 minutes. Serve warm with the chicken
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The recipe and cooking directions are taken directly from the Food Network website. There are some modifications I made to it though.

• The original recipe asked for 1 cup of salt in the brine, but comments said that it was too salty. I cut the portion down to 1/2 cup and it was still a tad too salty so I suggest cutting it down to 1/3 or 1/4 cup.
• I didn't have drops liquid smoke, nor do I know what they are, and I didn't have boneless chicken breast with skin. Because of that, I didn't cook the chicken the way they asked me to. This is how I cooked it: I sliced the chicken into thinner fillets so that it would go through more easily. Then I barely covered the bottom of the pan with chicken broth and cooked the chicken in the broth. Then when the broth boiled away, I poured in some olive oil to give the chicken that crisp texture on both sides.

After many attempts to make a good grilled chicken dish, I finally caved and went to a Food Network website for some advice. I've made some pretty random chicken dishes, I wish I posted them. But this dish came out pretty well. It came out a little saltier than I would have wanted. I'm not sure if it was because there was too much salt in the brine or because I left it in the brine for too long, but regardless it tasted pretty delicious.

Seared Rib-Eye Steak

I RAN 10 MILES! Unbelievable! Therefore, I thought it was a perfect time to cook my Rib-Eye that I had in the freezer for about 3 months. I thought I thoroughly deserved some good ol' red meat. What else to cook it with?

Courtesy of Alton Brown

Ingredients

• 1 boneless rib eye steak, 1.5-inch thick
  
• Canola oil
• Salt
• Black pepper

Directions

Place 10 to 12-inch cast iron skillet in oven and heat oven to 500 degrees. Bring steak(s) to room temperature.

When oven reaches temperature, remove pan and place on range over high heat. Coat steak lightly with oil and season both sides with a generous pinch of salt. Grind on black pepper to taste.

Immediately place steak in the middle of hot, dry pan. Cook 30 seconds without moving. Turn with tongs and cook another 30 seconds, then put the pan straight into the oven for 2 minutes. Flip steak and cook for another 2 minutes. (This time is for medium rare steaks. If you prefer medium, add a minute to both of the oven turns.)

Remove steak from pan, cover loosely with foil, and rest for 2 minutes. Serve whole or slice thin and fan onto plate.

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I cooked this steak for the first time last year when Aaron and I were living at the Residence Inn for reason I will not discuss on this blog. But when I first cooked it, it was DELICIOUS. It was honestly the best steak I've ever cooked for myself. It was juicy, medium-rare, appropriately seasoned, and incredibly simple! I just cooked the shrimp on the side with my own combination of spices (inspired of Emeril's Essence). And I didn't want to eat rice with this dish so I decided to make some potato fries with a potato I had left in my fridge. Although this meal was set up for ultimate success, I failed at two things: I overcooked the steak and I didn't have a metal strainer for the fries. What ended up happening was that I saw that the steak was done according to my timer, but since the timer was on my microwave I had the mentality thinking that since the timer was done the steak wasn't cooking anymore. Of course I was just stupid and I left the steak in the oven to realize 2 minutes later that it was still cooking. It wasn't medium rare like I had hope, more like medium-well bordering well-done. As for the fries, I didn't left the fries too long in the pot and I didn't have a metal strainer. All in all though, I think this could have been a delicious meal if I had just been paying more attention. It's simple and delicious, but this time around, the cook just failed.