Chicken baked with mushrooms in yogurt sauce.

Every Friday I get to abandon my husband’s really picky diet restrictions and stretch my kitchen wings and fly. This week I came up with a nice chicken and mushroom bake. I was a bit unhappy that my sauce thinned out while it cooked with the chicken, however it did have a tasty, gravy like consistency. Since I am a novice with cornstarch, I didn’t use too much, I think if I had doubled the cornstarch that might have thickened it more, but I don’t know for sure.

½ ounce or half package of dried porcini mushrooms reconstituted in 1 cup of water save water

1 cup of chicken broth

1 one medium clove of garlic crushed

½ cup chopped onion

1 cup sliced baby bella mushrooms or 1 chopped portabella

1 tablespoon of cornstarch

½ Cup of plain Greek yogurt

1 pound of chicken breasts

1 Tablespoon of tarragon

1 Tablespoon of butter

1/2 Teaspoon black truffle olive oil (optional)

In a two cup liquid measuring cup, take the dried porcini mushrooms and add water till it measures a cup. Microwave for five minutes, then let it rest and soak for twenty minutes. Drain and chop mushrooms but keep the reconstitution water.

In a medium sauce pan on medium heat start to sauté onions and mushrooms about two minutes then add garlic. Mix your reconstitution water and chicken broth, saving ¼ cup aside, add to mushrooms. To the set aside broth/water, add the cornstarch and mix well. Whisk the yogurt into the sauce until smooth, and stir often until mushroom sauce comes to a boil, stir your cornstarch mix again and add to boiling mix, and then reduce heat, and let the mix thicken up. Remove from heat, and add 1 tarragon truffle oil and butter and allow to cool slightly while oven preheats.

Preheat your oven to 350, and grease a baking dish preferably one with a cover. Put your chicken in the pan, and then when the oven is ready pour the soup over the chicken and bake until the chicken is cooked through, about an hour if you are using boneless breasts longer with bone in chicken.

It makes really good gravy for potatoes or even pasta if you prefer. If you like you can serve this as soup and just bake the chicken. If you make it into soup you can puree the soup in batches if you like. Make sure you take the center top off the blender lid, and cover with a towel while pureeing, if you have a hand blender that is even better.

You can use sour cream instead of Greek Yogurt or regular yogurt, or even crème fraiche. Also if you don’t like tarragon, you could try other racier spicess like cilantro oregano, or even chilies, or if I could have I would have put some curry powder in it. You might also try some fresh ginger and cumin. It’s all about finding what you like. Enjoy and if you do use my recipe I would be interested in finding out how you liked it, what worked and what didn’t.