Sunday Night: Chicken with Mushrooms

I came across a recipe for chicken and morels in a white-wine cream sauce while reading Jacque Pepin's Techniques yesterday morning. The recipe is straightforward, reasonably quick (particularly compared to some of the multi-day m0nsters in Techniques), and it sounded great.

So that's what we had for dinner last night. Since dried morels are obscenely expensive at Whole Foods, I used dried porcinis. These aren't the same, but they are awfully tasty.

The dish turned out great. I used to be really down on French cream sauces, for no good reason, but this was a beautiful example of combining a few simple but good ingredients (shallots, cream, white wine, sherry, pan drippings, mushrooms) and getting something amazing.

We had the chicken with some baked cauliflower, a loaf of pain de campagne, and a quick parsley salad (coarsely chopped parsley, red pepper, lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper) I made to act as an antidote to the richness of the chicken.