This is an adaptation of a conventional recipe.  The original called for sautéing boneless, skinless chicken breasts “until done”, removing them from the skillet, and then preparing a pan sauce.  Whenever I sauté chicken breasts, I feel I am walking a fine line between a dry stringy overcooked product and the pale pink-in-the-center threat of salmonella that comes from undercooking.  Neither alternative is acceptable, and the transition time between the two is short.

It occurred to me yesterday, after having prepared this dish perhaps fifty times if not more, that I could arrange for perfectly cooked chicken by using my sous vide machine and adapting the recipe.

Ingredients:

Two or three skinless, boneless chicken breasts, about 8 ounces each. (I removed the tenderloins.  Someone should tell the chickens, politely, that we don’t need them.)

One tablespoon of butter plus one and a half tablespoons of olive oil.

One-half cup all-purpose flour

Ten or so grinds of both salt and pepper

Sauce:

Two garlic cloves, chopped fine

Zest of one lemon

One tablespoon of lemon juice

One cup of chicken stock (home-made if possible)

One cup of roughly chopped basil leaves.

Note – all measurements are approximate and can be varied to suit.

Method:

I cooked three boneless skinless chicken breasts sous vide at 150º F for 75 minutes.

After removing the breasts from the sous vide immersion, I dried them by patting lightly with a paper towel and dredged them lightly in flour that had been seasoned with the salt and pepper.  Any loose flour will burn in the pan, so I shook each breast to get rid of excess flour. I melted the butter and oil in a sauté pan over medium heat.  When oil and butter were hot, I added the chicken and cooked for 90 seconds on a side – just enough to produce a slight crust and some brown color.  (The sous vide immersion cooked the chicken, so the sauté is for aesthetics and mouthfeel.)

I put the chicken aside and made the sauce.  I lowered the heat slightly and added the garlic, cooking for 30 seconds, then the lemon zest, cooking for only a few seconds, then the lemon juice until it sizzled and finally the chicken stock.  I increased the heat to bring the whole thing to a boil and let it reduce to about half.  It was still quite thin, but I decided that was OK.

If you like a thicker sauce, you could try beating in a couple of tablespoons of butter, or you could put a small amount of sauce in a bowl with perhaps a teaspoon of corn starch, stir together until smooth, then add to the sauce and stir to thicken.  I thought it was fine as is.

I added the basil to the pan and stirred to combine.  At that point, the sauce can come off the heat.   I sliced the chicken three-quarters of an inch thick and then spooned some sauce over it.

I served it with long-grain brown rice and a vegetable, which someone said was called a zucchini if I have the name right.

The breasts were perfectly cooked through, juicy, tender.  I don’t think the chicken needed 75 minutes and it might have been just as good at a slightly lower temperature.  Next time I will lower the temperature two degrees to 148º F and cook for 60 minutes.

I thought a young Chianti went well with the chicken.   (Then again, I would drink a red Tuscan wine or one from Bordeaux with anything that didn’t swim.)