Macaroni Grill Recipe Secret

We took an unplanned hiatus from blogging - although not from cooking. I have a backlog of things to post. I'll get started with the recipe that came "in the mail".  I bought a cookbook at the Little River Elementary school book fair America's Most Wanted Recipes. Recipes from major chain restaurants. Well, not the actual recipes, knock offs, but very close. Wanting to do something different for dinner, I made this one. I thought it would be too lemony with the amount of lemon juice it called for. I cut the lemon juice in half and upped the white wine. Even with that, the sauce still had 'pucker' to it. I've never had the original MG version.


MACARONI GRILL'S SCALOPPINE di POLLO
Lemon Butter Sauce:
  4 ounces lemon juice
  2 ounces white wine
  4 ounces heavy cream
  1 pound (4 sticks) butter

6 to 8 (3-ounce) chicken breasts, pounded thin
Oil and butter for sauteing chicken
1/2 to 3/4 cup flour, seasoned with salt and pepper, for dredging
6 ounces pancetta, cooked
12 ounces mushrooms, sliced
12 ounces artichoke hearts, sliced
1 tablespoon capers
1 pound cappellini pasta, cooked
Chopped parsley, for garnish

To make the sauce: Heat the lemon juice and white wine in a
saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil and reduce by one-third.
Add cream and simmer until mixture thickens (3 to 4 minutes).
Slowly add butter until completely incorporated. Season with salt
and pepper. Remove from heat and keep warm.

To make chicken and pasta: Cook pasta and drain. Heat a small
amount of oil and two tablespoons butter in a large skillet. Dredge
chicken in flour and saute in pan, turning once, until brown and
cooked through. Remove chicken from pan and add to pan remaining
ingredients. Heat until mushrooms soften and are cooked; add
chicken back to pan.

To serve: Place cooked pasta on each plate. Add half of butter
sauce to chicken mixture and toss. Taste and adjust, adding more
sauce if needed. Place chicken mixture over pasta. Garnish with
parsley. Alternately, mix pasta and chicken mixture together. Toss
with butter sauce.

Source: The Secret Recipe Forum http://www.recipesecrets.net/forums

Chicken Divan

You might think, golly, Chicken Divan, there are a gzillion recipes for Chicken Divan. Pick one.  This is certainly not adventurous or dangerous cooking. I agree. 
I was reviewing some recipes, and came across this and thought it an easy dinner to make. The recipe called for cream of chicken soup. Which I did not have on hand. More often than not I don't keep such cream soups in the house. I learned from AB years ago to create a homemade sauce and use that. So, I said to myself "self, use the lesson you learned". 
Made the roux, added the milk along with sour cream and mayonnaise. Well, this recipe didn't call for sour cream, but, others do. Then, in goes colby-jack shredded cheese (I used Sargento's); of course some salt and pepper. Diced and sautéd the chicken in my everyday pan with cumin, curry, salt and pepper. Juices accumulate, this turns out to be a good thing. Dump the cheese sauce into the cooked chicken. Dump the broccoli into the bottom of the pan. Pour the chicken and cheese on top. Bake. 
One key seems to be the addition of cumin. I did that one time by mistake. While making a different recipe for Chicken Divan, I reached for the curry. Then, after it was already in discovered I had a jar of cumin in my hand. Cumin. Curry. Yeah, they are about the same color and consistency. Not quite in taste. But, we love cumin around here, so I figured "what the heck". Easy mistake, huh? Turned out delicious.

Chicken Divan
Recipe By: Sue
Serving Size: 10
Yield: 13x9 casserole

Cheese Sauce:
2 10 ounce packages frozen broccoli
3 tablespoons butter, melted in saucepan
3 tablespoons Wondra flour
1 cup milk
2 tablespoons sour cream
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 cup colby jack cheese, shredded 

Chicken:
4 chicken breasts, boneless, skinless
1/2 teaspoon curry powder
1/2 teaspoon cumin
Salt and pepper to taste
Topping options
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1/2 cup grated cheese
1 teaspoon butter
Fresh parsley flakes

Directions:
Arrange the broccoli on the bottom of the dish
Melt butter in saucepan until foam has dissipated. Add flour; a pinch of salt and pepper and mix together well and let cook 3-5 minutes. Slowly whisk in milk. Whisk in sour cream and mayonnaise. Mixture will be thick.  

Pour about 1 Tablespoon, once around the pan, vegetable oil in skillet or other wide pan. Sauté chicken along with spices (curry, cumin, salt and pepper). Let cook until chicken is opaque. Chicken will cook more in the oven, so it doesn't need to be completely cooked through. Juices will accumulate in the pan. 

Off heat, pour cheese mixture into cooked chicken. Mix together and pour over broccoli. 

Top with your choice of grated cheese and bread crumbs. You may mix bread crumbs with melted butter for a crisper topping. 

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. After baking, you may garnish with parsley. Serve over noodles or rice.