Pan-Roasted Chicken Breasts with Garlic and Sherry Sauce

From America's Test Kitchen, The Complete Cooking for Two Cookbook

Serves 2

Ingredients

• 2 (12-ounce) bone-in split chicken breasts, trimmed and brined if desired
• Salt and pepper
• 2 teaspoons vegetable oil*
• 3 garlic cloves, sliced thin
• ½ cup chicken broth
• ¼ cup dry sherry
• 2 sprigs fresh thyme
• 1 tablespoon butter, chilled
• ½ teaspoon lemon juice

Method

1. Adjust oven rack to lowest position and heat oven to 450 degrees.** Pat chicken dry with paper towels and season with salt and pepper.***

2. Heat oil in 10-inch ovensafe skillet over medium-high heat until just smoking. Lay chicken skin side down in skillet and cook until well browned on first side, 6 to 8 minutes, reducing heat if pan begins to scorch. Flip chicken and continue to cook until lightly browned, about 3 minutes.

3. Flip chicken skin side down and transfer skillet to oven. Roast until chicken registers 160 degrees, 15-18 minutes.****

4. Using potholders (skillet handle will be hot), remove skillet from oven. Transfer chicken to serving platter and tent loosely with aluminum foil.

5. Being careful of hot skillet handle, pour off all but 1 tablespoon fat from skillet, add garlic, and cook over medium heat until softened, about 2 minutes. Stir in flour and cook for 1 minute. Whisk in broth, sherry, and thyme sprigs, scraping up any browned bits. Bring to simmer and cook until slightly thickened, about 5 minutes. Stir in any accumulated chicken juices and simmer for 30 seconds. Off heat, remove thyme sprigs and whisk in butter and lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Pour sauce over chicken and serve.

Our notes:

*We prefer to use extra light olive oil or avocado oil since they have a higher smoke point.

**We put the oven at 400 degrees feeling that 450 might be too much. Worked fine. Probably took longer to cook, but you could hear the sizzling from the oven.

***If you brine the chicken, leave off the salt in step 1.

****It took longer than 15-18 minutes in the oven. It depends on size of chicken, your own oven, etc. Just stick to that 160 degrees using an instant read thermometer and you'll be fine.

We brined the chicken for several hours (1 tbsp salt per every cup of water - cover the chicken), and flipped it once.

We used homemade organic chicken broth, home grown thyme, organic butter, and organic lemon juice.

Since we had a lemon anyway, we zested it and sprinkled it over the top of the completed dish. Added a nice zing!

April 2021