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.