







For dinner, some friends and I were having a cook-off of sorts, and so I decided to pull out the big guns: rosemary chicken and roasted potatoes w/ my uncle's famous red wine reduction sauce. This meal for two took about 1.5 hours to make, although it's not as hard as it sounds. Guys, if you're trying to impress someone, this is it . Girls, same for you.













Here we go. Ingredients (for 2 servings):





For the sauce:

4 Shallots chopped

10 to 12 chopped mushroom slices

4 cloves of garlic chopped

2 tablespoons of butter - can be substituted w/ olive oil - it's for sautéing

2 cups of Red Wine - I used Beringer Red Moscato; any cabernet or merlot should work.

1.5 can chicken broth

2 teaspoons of cornstarch

1 small can of Tomato Sauce

For the chicken:

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts

4 cloves garlic, mashed

3-4 tablespoons rosemary leaves - I used 4 and I think I overshot a little bit

6-8 tablespoons olive oil

a squirt of lemon For the potatoes:

~10 baby redskin potatoes

3 tablespoons olive oil

a dash or two of salt Recipe:

Go to Pandora.com and search for the artist "Pink Martini". Let that play while you cook. You will feel so much classier. First off, you're going to make a marinade for the chicken. Mash up your four cloves of garlic with your chef's knife, and add your rosemary. You will notice that when you try to chop up your rosemary leaves, they fly everywhere. To prevent this, add just a touch of olive oil, mix, chop, add more oil, repeat, etc. You want to eventually make a paste out of the garlic and rosemary to which you will add just a squeeze of lemon juice. Once you've made a paste (should take you 6-8 tablespoons of olive oil), rub it over your chicken breasts and let them sit in a dish to marinate while you work on the other stuff.

While that sits, we are going to get started on the red wine reduction sauce: Chop up your shallots, mushrooms, and garlic. You might know shallots as "green onions" - I haven't been able to tell a difference. You'll only want to use the green part of the stem, not the hard, white part. Sauté these in olive oil in a medium-size saucepan until they're a light brown. Add your red wine. Now begins the "reduction" part of the recipe. What you'll be doing is basically boiling off the alcohol and excess liquid, leaving the intense flavors of the wine. Again, exactly which wine you choose is up to you, depending on the flavor that you like the most. However, you can't just set the heat on high and leave it - you'll burn the other stuff in the pan. You want to keep the wine on a medium simmer, stirring occasionally to make sure nothing is sticking to the bottom. Reduce until you have about 1/2 of the quantity that you originally had. This took me about 1/2 hour.

While that goes through its first reduction, we can start on the potatoes: Wash and scrub your baby redskin potatoes. Cut them into quarters. OPTIONAL: If I were you, I'd also make some vegetables with this dish. A quick way to do this is to buy some brussels sprouts, chop them in half, and throw them in with the potatoes. Highly recommended. Put your potatoes and veggies into a large glass baking dish, and lightly drizzle with olive oil. Mix until the oil is evenly distributed, then add just a bit of salt. Mix until that is distributed as well. Set aside to marinate. Preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Returning to the sauce:

Mix your chicken broth and cornstarch in jar or sealed tupperware or something similar that you can shake. Now that your wine has reduced, add the broth & cornstarch mixture to it. Bring to a boil. Once the mixture is boiling, add your can of small tomato sauce. Now, you want to reduce this mixture to a consistency somewhere between that of runny gravy and malt-o-meal. The exact consistency is up to you; it should be viscous but not solid; liquid enough that you can easily spoon it but not runny enough that it won't stay on your food. I think I reduced mine by about 1/2 to 2/3. Follow the same rules for reduction as before; no hard boiling. Mine took in the area of 40-45 minutes, but yours will vary depending on how big a pan you use, how high your heat is at, your type of wine, etc. The home stretch:

Throw your potatoes in the oven and set your timer for 35 minutes. You'll want to stir them every 10 or so. After 35 minutes, check them every 5 minutes. Once they are just starting to show signs of softening, turn on the broiler and leave them under the broiler for 5 minutes to crisp up the outsides. While your potatoes are cooking, we're going to make the chicken. Follow the same recipe as I did before: Add just a little bit of olive oil to a large skillet; most of it will be in the marinade you made. Throw the chicken in on a medium-high heat; cook for 5 minutes, flip, 5 minutes, flip and reduce heat to medium, cook for 5 minutes per side until done. Check if it's done by sticking your knife into the middle. If your sauce finishes first, turn off the heat but leave it on the burner; you want it to stay warm. If the potatoes or chicken finish first, pull them off of the heat; they'll stay warm on their own. You're done. Serve with a glass of wine if desired. Leave your Pink Martini music playing during dinner to keep it classy. Some of you are probably concerned about cost; I spent $8 getting all of the supplies for this, and we definitely had ingredients left over to cook with. All in all, not much cost for a really good upgrade - this red wine sauce could make horse hooves taste good.





In terms of eating today, I've got some eggs I'm going to try to use up, I think. Maybe finally finish the last of my pasta. Check back soon!

First, I should state that I continued making my way through my leftover pasta marinara for lunch. Almost there!