Chicken with Mushrooms and Swiss Cheese

One of the ugliest yet most delicious meals I've ever made. The floured chicken seasoned with oregano and paprika, which gives it a nice golden color, is pan seared for a light crispy breading. The chicken is then topped with a saute combo of mushrooms, scallions, and garlic that are then boiled with chicken broth and dry white wine.
The dish is then baked as a casserole, and finally, the finishing touch is a mixture of sour cream and shredded Swiss cheese stirred into the sauce for an added rich, creaminess as well as piquant flavor. The chicken comes out so tender; Mmm!

First, I'm starting off with my breading mixture on a piece of wax paper. There's no real dredging involved in this process. Basically, take your chicken pieces and unceremoniously get them covered with this mix.

Cook the chicken in a skillet with oil heated over medium-high for about 5 minutes per side. The recipe called for 6 chicken breast halves, but we don't eat that much. What I've done here is taken one half breast and sliced it into thirds scaloppini-style.

Chicken, post skillet, into a 2 1/2 quart baking dish.

In the same pan, mushrooms, green onions, and garlic - YUM! Does it ever happen to you where usually you're sauteing some fragrant stuff like garlic and onions and someone yells from across the house, "Something smells good!"

Add chicken broth and dry white wine. I always use apple juice as a substitute for white wine simply because I don't consume alcohol and even if I did, I don't think I'd pop open a bottle for such a small amount used in a recipe like this. Bring this to a boil.

Pour over chicken and bake for 30 minutes.

This was the results 30 minutes later...I'll get to the cheese part in a sec, but I'd like to state that a really cool part about making this dish is the 30 minutes between prep and finishing. It gave me a chance to catch up on some dishes and clean counters and stove so I wouldn't have so much work after dinner.

This is a mix of sour cream and Swiss cheese. I had time to put this together during the first baking process.

Stir the cheese mixture into the chicken and incorporate. Put the baking dish, uncovered, back into the oven for about 15 more minutes.

Not the prettiest food in the world, but wow! what a taste. Jen, Lily, as well as myself scarfed this up very quickly and went looking for seconds. We had actually postponed eating this for 10 minutes for me to cook some pasta - it was a perfect topping for it since I had extra sauce because I didn't use as much chicken as the recipe called for. From the pic above, we served a side a broccoli with it, which was also perfect. If your kids don't like broccoli they can dip it into the cheese sauce!

Recipe

This recipe is from last week when I was cooking from The Big Book of Casseroles: 250 Recipes for Serious Comfort Food [Paperback] .

3 T AP flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp dried oregano
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp paprika
6 boneless skinless chicken breast halves
2 T veg oil
2 T butter or margarine
10 green onions, including green tops, sliced
8 oz large mushrooms, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 chicken broth
1/2 dry white wine
1/2 light sour cream
1 C grated Swiss cheese

Preheat oven to 350. On a sheet of wax paper combine flour, salt, oregano, pepper, paprika. Toss chicken in mixture to coat.

Heat oil in skillet over medium-high. Brown chicken about 5 min per side. Transfer chicken to 2 1/2 qt casserole sprayed with cooking spray.

In same skillet over medium heat, melt butter. Add onions, mushrooms and garlic. saute until tender about 5 minutes. Add broth and wine, bring to a boil, pour over chicken and baked, covered, for 30 minutes.

In a small bowl mix sour cream and Swiss cheese. Stir into the juices of the casserole. Bake, uncovered, 15 minutes longer or until sauce is bubbly.

Definitely try this one!