The Nom Report - Episode 9, Lemon Shallot Chicken

Returning to our previous experiments of seaching for great lemon chicken recipes, we turned to The Pioneer Woman, http://thepioneerwoman.com/.  We wanted to try the Lemon Shallot Butter, but on chicken instead of sea bass.  The chicken was the basic panko chicken we've made before (Check Episode 5 for the recipe), but the sauce was disappointing.  Kami and Regina like their sauce.  And after following the original recipe, we weren't excited about what was in the pan.  It seemed lacking.  So we improvised.  Regina grabbed a bottle of Riesling and a carton of cream and we tried throwing some of that in.  We decided it looked pretty good and served it like that, over rice.  We were quite happy with the results.  The Nom Inspector was pleased, and Regina found it reheated pretty well the next day.  Yey leftovers! 

Lemon Shallot Butter (that became a cream sauce)

3 Tablespoons Butter

1 whole Medium-sized Shallot, Minced

1 whole Lemon, Zested And Juiced

1/3 cup white wine

Heavy Cream (we're guesstimating that we used about a half cup)

Melt the butter over a medium-high heat. Add in the minced shallot and lemon zest. Cook over medium-high heat for a couple of minutes.  When the shallots have become a little softer, squeeze in the juice of 1 lemon. Add the wine, whisk together and reduce the heat to medium.  When the wine has had a few minutes to reduce, add the heavy cream.  Heat through and serve over chicken.

For dessert, we made Pioneer Woman's Cinnamon Pear Crisp.  The only problem with dessert was that we really wanted some ice cream to have with it!  Oh wait, there was one minor change.  It called for nuts, pecans to be specific, and neither Kami or Regina are particularly fond of nuts.  So Regina decided to use granola for a bit of crunch. 

Cinnamon Pear Crisp

• 4 whole (to 5) Large Pears (Bosc Work Well)
• ⅔ cups Sugar
• ¼ teaspoons Salt

Topping Ingredients

• 1-½ cup All-purpose Flour
• ⅓ cups Sugar
• ⅓ cups Firmly Packed Brown Sugar
• ½ teaspoons Cinnamon
• ½ cup granola (crushed a bit so there are no huge lumps)
• 1 stick Butter, Melted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Peel, core, and dice pears.  Place into a bowl and stir together with 2/3 cup sugar and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Set aside.
In a separate bowl, combine flour, sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, and pecans. Stir together. Drizzle melted butter gradually, stirring with a fork as you go until all combined.  Pour pears into a baking dish; top with crumb topping.  Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.  Place pan on top rack of oven for an additional 10 minutes, or until topping is golden brown.
Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.  (We didn't do this.  You should.)

Regina thought the crisp was tasty but bordering on too sweet.  Kami took the leftovers to work however, and there were apparently battles for them.