Creamy Tuscan Chicken

I’m a lifelong learner. There is almost nothing I would rather do than learn something new, or create something beautiful. I’ve always had a good eye, both for colour and for composition, and I’m definitely the photographer in our house – Steve takes pretty bad pics, especially of me!

I recently took a great course to help me get out of automatic mode on my DSLR and I’ve been playing around in the kitchen, and the dining room, and the office, and…wherever I can find the best light, ever since. To push myself even farther, I’m also doing an online food photography course (I’d call it more of a challenge personally), which has been a great source of inspiration and constructive criticism.

So far I have been avoiding photographing main dishes. It just seems so complicated to make a meal and think about the photography at the same time. Our lack of light during the winter wasn’t helping either as by the time dinner was on it was dark out and without lighting equipment I am tied to daylight. I’m workin’ on it and as the days get longer I intend to post more of my favourite main dishes.

I had all of the ingredients for this Creamy Tuscan Chicken in my pantry, except for the fresh basil, and I didn’t have to worry about the cauliflower rice since it was left over from the night before (good thing it photographs well!).

This dish is easy to do – lovely and decadent with it’s cream sauce.

One of the things I like about it is that there isn’t too much of the creamy sauce. I like my dishes saucy but I almost always find that recipes make way too much and then you end up tossing nice ingredients.  This one is just right. Just enough to go over rice, or in my case cauliflower rice, but not so much that I end up throwing it out once the meat is scarfed up.

Creamy Tuscan Chicken

Author: Mia Staysko

An elegant but still simple Italian inspired dish

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Ingredients

• 1 Tbsp ghee
• 8 - 12 chicken thighs skin on bone in
• Kosher salt and pepper
• 3 garlic cloves minced
• 1/4 - 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes or to taste
• 1 Cup chicken broth
• 1/2 C heavy cream
• 1/2 C sliced sundried tomatoes drained and chopped
• 1/4 C parmesan cheese
• 1/4 C basil chiffonade
• 1/4 tsp oregano
• 1/4 tsp dried basil
• 1/4 tsp thyme

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400 °
2. Heat an oven-proof skillet or sauté pan over med-high heat until hot
3. Add ghee to coat pan and place half of the chicken thighs into the pan skin side down. Do not crowd the pan
4. Brown chicken on both sides
5. Remove chicken to a plate to brown the other half of the chicken pieces
6. Drain off all but 1 Tbsp of remaining oil in pan
7. Add garlic and red pepper flakes to pan and stir until fragrant, just a minute or so. Do not burn the garlic!
8. Add broth, cream, tomatoes and herbs to the pan, scraping up brown bits while stirring
9. Bring to a low boil and thicken slightly
10. Arrange chicken back in pan skin side up
11. Place pan into prepared oven
12. Roast 25 - 30 minutes until chicken reaches 175°

Recipe Notes

Serve with cauliflower rice to mop up the yummy sauce!