Chicken with Mushrooms from Martha Stewart Reviewed

• Estimated Cooking Time: 25 minutes
• Actual Cooking Time: 31 minutes

This is a deceptively simple recipe because it really is delicious with just a bit of extra flare compared to just frying up some chicken and mushrooms. Adding thyme and white wine to the mushrooms really creates an interesting texture and wonderful flavor, while coating the chicken in flour before frying is a simple but effective technique for creating chicken with a crispy texture.

The ingredients for this quick chicken recipe are very simple! You probably have everything on hand already, and you can always sub the broth for salt, chicken seasoning, or bullion cubes, and the thyme for another herb you like (or just have on hand).

I wondered why the recipe had me cover the chicken with flour, because it wasn't a “crispy” or “fried” recipe, but the results were tasty! Even with just a bit of salt, pepper, and flour, the chicken thighs turned out to have a nice crispy outside.

Once I added the mushroom sauce, however, the crispiness didn't stay. I'm not sure if that was intentional or not. the flour did help thicken the mushroom sauce though. If you want the chicken or chicken skin to remain crispy, I'd add the chicken to the mushrooms at the very last moment rather than cooking together as I did.

I prefer button mushrooms because they have a bit more of a springy bite to them, but criminis is all they had in the store. Good enough!

Thyme isn't an herb that I get to use a lot, so I'm still figuring out where it plays in my palate. I was pretty conservative since I used dry thyme instead of fresh, as recommended in the recipe.

I like cooking mushrooms because they come with their own water for sauteing!

Here is where I added the 1/4 cup of white wine. Since I don't drink a lot of wine (I prefer beer), I figured out that you can actually buy wine in mini bottles, which is perfect for the style of cooking I do. No, it's not gourmet wine, but it's good enough for cooking, and it means I don't have to drink a whole bottle by myself every time I cook something containing less than a cup of it!

After the sauce started to thicken, I added the chicken back to the mushrooms and continued to cook for a few minutes. I got a bit impatient, and added just a bit of flour water to help thicken the sauce. This also sped up cooking time. It's starting to look delicious!

The final product would have been better with some fresh parsley, but who has the time or money for that. For a one off quick recipe to review, the dried stuff is fine. Though if it were me and I wasn't photographing it, I wouldn't take the time to add it.

Get the original recipe from Martha Stewart.