Winner winner; chicken, mushroom, garlicky broccoli dinner!
Okay yeah, I know I made that a little longer than it was originally intended but I think you’ll get over that once you try this one. IT IS just SO GOOD!
Take tender chicken cutlets lightly dredged in seasoned flour and sautéed until just golden, then smother them in a super simple mega mushroom made-in-the-same-pan sauce.
Yep, you remove the cutlets once they’re done and whip together a beautiful mushroom gravy with all the wonderful browned bits of goodness left in the pan, just like the pro that you are! Then you’ll sliiiide that chicken back into the hot tub and serve this sinfully saucy succulence with some crispy charred, garlic kissed roasted broccoli stalks.
You’ll be the MVP of the dinner crowd. As usual. 🤗
Ha! You know it’s true. But hey, okay, no time for bragging. This one has a couple of moving parts (don’t panic, nothing too strenuous) so let’s focus and get this on the table…….
Start with the broccoli. Get after the roughest part of those stalks with a vegetable peeler, and trim off the woody dry ends. Slice the broccoli into little trees. They don’t have to be perfect, just do your best. Lay these out onto a rimmed baking sheet (covered in foil for easy clean up, thank you very much) with the flowerets pointing outward.
Sorta like that (above).
In a small bowl or measuring cup, mix together about three tablespoons of olive oil with two or three very thinly sliced garlic cloves. Drizzle this over the broccoli spears and give them a good rub down with your hands to make sure everybody gets some lovin! Pay particular attention to those little green fuzzy broccoli heads, you want them nice and coated with oil so they’ll crispy up for you. A little extra drizzle of lube never hurt anyone; salt and pepper and into the oven they go.
While that’s happening, we’ll get on with the chicken.
I used two boneless, skinless chicken breasts, not hugely sized, but not too tiny either (about 1/2 lb. each). Now don’t you go purchasing the pre-made “cutlets” thinking you’ll save time. You’ll only gain about two minutes and you’ll spend more $ and the chicken will most likely be dry. No no no. It’s easy to cutlet them up yourself!
Just lay one piece flat out on a cutting board, and with your palm pressing firmly over it to keep it stable, slice through the breast horizontally with a very sharp knife. (see a little more detailed photos of this with my chicken picatta post, if you need a peek) You want to sort of “shave” a scant 1/4 inch layer off the length of the meat, and look…..I ended up with 5 little cutlets off of one breast! Don’t worry if they end up a bit on the uneven side, in fact that is sure to happen. This process will instantly render the chicken tenderized and super-quick to cook up.
Sprinkle 1/4 cup or so of all-purpose flour into a shallow dish or dinner plate. Season this with a very healthy dose of salt and some fresh black pepper. Take your little chicken slices, and douse them one by one in the flour mixture, shaking off the excess as you go. Get them all floured and ready before you even think about getting anybody in a pan……you’ll most likely end up with some excess flour when you’re done with this step…that’s just fine.
Now we’re movin………
Heat some olive oil and butter in a big old skillet. Once that’s got its froth going on, pop in your flour dusted chicken pieces. Unless you have a really big pan, you will have to do it in two batches, in order not to crowd anybody.
Get these guys just barely browned on each side, three minutes for the first side, and then flip ’em over for two minutes on other. You want the heat pretty high for this, and you’ll find the second batch cooks up much faster and with more color. Remove everybody from the pan onto a separate plate to hang out once they are done. We’ll be seeing these again very soon.
It’s time to make that magnificent mushroom sauce!
Add another drizzle of olive oil to the same pan that you just finished cooking your chicken in. Toss in two finely diced shallots (what exactly is a shallot anyway, besides a stunted onion? Find out here), as you stir and scrape up all the browned goodies (read: FLAVOR!) from the bottom of the pan, until the shallots are soft and translucent.
Next goes in a mountain of chopped mushrooms!
Spin these around the pan and let them get a little bit of browning action. This will take about ten minutes. During that time, their volume will shrink down considerably. So be generous with your fungus!
While that’s happening make a quick slurry, which is basically a thickening agent for your sauce. All you have to do is add a tablespoon of flour to 1/4 cup of chicken broth. Give this a good stir with a fork, making sure to get all the lumps out.
Then add that to your mushrooms and stir.
This will IMMEDIATLEY thicken up once it hits that hot pan. Thin it down gradually, by adding a little bit of chicken broth 1/4 cup at a time. Just stir it in, let it simmer and bubble until you get your “gravy” to a consistency that you like. I like mine a little on the thinner side.
Sorry so steamy! There! That looks about perfect to me. Give it a taste for seasoning, this could probably use some salt by now. Gently slip in your chicken cutlets you had waiting over there on the sidelines.
You can turn the heat to low or even completely off at this point. You just need a little time to warm that chicken through. Now pelt the whole she-bang with a generous scatter of chopped parsley!
Don’t forget to pull that broccoli out of the oven. It should be singing to you by now.
Look at that! The broccoli heads get all crispy and those little slivers of garlic get all crunchy. Just THE best side to go along with all that saucy meaty mushroomy chicken happiness! 
Is that a perfect plate or what?
RECIPE BELOW: Pretty much from start to finish, you’re going to put in about 45 minutes of your precious time; and that includes all the prep, peeling, slicing and dicing of all the ingredients. The pay-off is for real! Makes enough for four servings (yes, even with just TWO chicken breasts) leftovers are super yummy if you don’t snarf it all up in one sitting.
- 1 lb. broccoli (approx two heads) trimmed and sliced into stalks
- 2-4 garlic cloves, peeled and thinly sliced
- 3 tablespoons olive oil (or more)
- Kosher salt and fresh black pepper to taste
- 2 chicken breasts (approx 1lb. total weight), cut horizontally into thin cutlets. You should get at least four pieces per breast.
- 2 shallots, peeled and finely diced
- 10 ounces sliced white mushrooms, cleaned and roughly chopped
- 1/4 cup (plus one tablespoon) all-purpose flour
- 2-3 tablespoons butter
- 1/4 cup (divided) olive oil
- 1/4 cup chicken broth (plus extra for thinning down your sauce, about 1 cup total)
- a big bunch of chopped fresh parsley (just eyeball it)
- Kosher salt and black pepper to taste
- Preheat your oven to 350°
- In a small bowl, mix together the sliced garlic with 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil. These measurements do not need to be exact so just eyeball it. Spread the broccoli spears out onto a foil lined sheet pan with the florets facing out. Drizzle the garlic oil all over and using your hands, make sure everyone is evenly coated. Add a bit more oil if you need to and make sure those fuzzy little green heads are well lubed.
- Sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper and place into the oven for 30 minutes.
- Sprinkle (approx) 1/4 cup of all purpose flour onto a plate, and season generously with salt and pepper.
- Dredge each chicken cutlet into the flour, shaking off the excess as you go.
- In a large frying pan over a medium high heat, melt 1 - 2 tablespoons of butter. Add a generous drizzle of olive oil to that to coat the bottom of the pan, and let this get sizzly and foamy.
- Place half of the floured chicken cutlets into the pan, making sure not to crowd. Cook on the first side for three minutes, then flip them over for an additional one to two minutes, or until slightly browned. Remove the chicken to a plate, and continue with the second batch, adding more butter and olive oil to the pan in between. Once the second batch is cooked, remove that to the plate and set aside.
- Add more butter and/or olive oil to the pan if it seems to need a little lube and then add the chopped shallot, scraping and stirring in the browned bits leftover in the pan from the chicken. Continue cooking over a medium heat until the shallots are soft and translucent, about 5-7 minutes.
- Now add the mushrooms, and a pinch of salt, and stir and cook for another ten minutes, until the mushrooms have shrunk in volume and are slightly bronzed.
- In a small bowl or cup, mix 1 tablespoon of flour with 1/4 cup of chicken broth. This is where the broth in the box comes in very handy. Make sure to use a fork to give this a good stir, you want to make sure there are no lumps in your "slurry". Now add this to your hot pan of mushrooms, this should thicken up the minute it hits the pan.
- Continue stirring and cooking as you add additional chicken broth, 1/4 cup or so at a time, until your gravy thins down to the perfect consistency....for me, it was about an extra cup of the broth. Now gently slide that chicken back into the mushroom saucy-ness, and give the whole lot of it a flourish of chopped parsley. At this point you can turn the heat way down or completely off.
- Serve with that beautifully burnished broccoli.....which will be conveniently ready for you just in time. How do you like THAT?
- There is lots of room to use your best judgement with the oil, here. You may find the mushrooms need a little drizzle as they cook down (they can be like little sponges), or that your chicken could use a tad more than specified.....or less! Don't worry too much about stuff like that.
