Chicken Piccata With Mushrooms

Last night, B and I wanted to make a simple chicken dish for dinner.  We had leftover mushrooms from our stir-fry this weekend so I thought that chicken marsala would be a good choice.  But B really wanted to use capers as an ingredient for a chicken piccata like dishes.  We decided to compromise by making chicken piccata with mushrooms.

To start, B trimmed and halved three boneless chicken breasts.  Since the breasts were halved, they did not require any pounding to thin them out for fast and even cooking.  The breasts were generously seasoned with salt, fresh-cracked peppercorns, and cayenne pepper.

I heated up a skillet with a few tablespoons of butter and I tested it with a few drops of water to ensure that the skillet was sizzling.  The chicken breasts were browned by cooking it a few minutes on each side and then removed from the skillet.

Without cleaning the skillet, we added probably about a package and a half (twelve ounces total) of sliced Baby Bella mushrooms along with a few cloves of minced garlic and a few tablespoons of capers that had been carefully washed to remove most of the salty briny flavor.  The mushrooms needed to cook down a bit so while this was going, I started boiling some water in my vegetable steamer.  Although we would have mushrooms as a vegetable, I also wanted to make a side of steamed broccoli using a small head of fresh broccoli.

When the mushrooms cooked down a bit, we added the chicken breast back in the pan and then I added the sauce, which consisted of one cup of chicken broth, a half cup of white wine and the lemon juice from half a lemon. We used one of our favorite wines - Oyster Bay Sauvignon Blanc:

B put a lid on the skillet and let the sauce cook down for awhile.  This timed out perfectly because while the chicken and mushroom sauce cooked down, the water began to boil for the steamed broccoli.

B checked on the chicken and the mushroom sauce seemed a bit watery so he added a dash or two of cornstarch to thicken it up.

The end result?  This was an incredibly moist chicken breast with a delightfully thick mushroom and caper sauce.  The steamed broccoli helped cut the rich taste of the mushroom sauce.  I think this dish would also go well served over pasta - like linguine or egg noodles.  But for us, it was fine sans pasta.  Sometimes you have to compromise in the kitchen and our chicken piccata with mushrooms turned out to be a perfect (and tasty) blend of ideas.