For a Crowd, Do Dijon Chicken

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Chicken is such easy going stuff, amenable to all kinds of flavors, and manner of preparation whether stove top, oven, or grill. Most modern people don’t have to catch chickens, murder, pluck, and eviscerate them, and besides all that, we can buy vast quantities of all our favorite parts: breasts, thighs, legs, or wings. Little wonder there seems to be no end to chicken recipes.

My friend Bonnie Hughes gave me this recipe which she got from her sister Barbara. It is a good way to handle boneless, skinless breasts which, frankly, are always a little at risk of being flavorless, too, and with a dose of Dijon mustard and a dash of cayenne produces a handy pan full of chicken for as many as eight to ten folks for a party or potluck. Divide the recipe, and you have the right amount for a family supper. No one says that you can’t use the sauce on a cut up chicken, or all thighs.

Bonnie cautioned against using low or non-fat yogurt. If you lack whole milk yogurt, you can improve the situation by draining the low fact stuff in a sieve for an hour and letting it thicken (a good way to produce a reasonable facsimile of Greek-style yogurt, too.)

If you do not enjoy cayenne, you know that you can leave it out. If you like capsicum, you can consider chipoltle or chili powder, or even a few chopped jalapenos, instead.

Barb's Dijon Chicken
 
Ingredients
  • 4-5 chicken breasts, cut into serving sized strips
  • 2 tablespoons lemon juice
  • Salt and pepper
  • ½ cup yogurt
  • ¼ cup mayonnaise
  • 1 to 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
  • 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
  • ½ teaspoon dried thyme
  • ¼ teaspoon cayenne
  • 2-3 scallions, sliced thinly
  • ½ cup parmesan grated cheese
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
  2. Lay the chicken in a single layer in a baking dish.
  3. Sprinkle with lemon juice and add salt and pepper to taste.
  4. Mix together yogurt, mayonnaise, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, thyme, cayenne, and scallions and spread over the chicken.
  5. Bake for about 30 to 50 minutes until done.
  6. Sprinkle the Parmesan cheese over the chicken, and run under the broiler for a few moments, then serve.

 

Sandy Oliver

About Sandy Oliver

Sandy Oliver Sandy is a freelance food writer with the column Taste Buds appearing weekly since 2006 in the Bangor Daily News, and regular columns in Maine Boats, Homes, and Harbors magazine and The Working Waterfront. Besides freelance food writing, she is a pioneering food historian beginning her work in 1971 at Mystic Seaport Museum, where she developed a fireplace cooking program in an 1830s house. After moving to Maine in 1988, Sandy wrote, Saltwater Foodways: New Englanders and Their Foods at Sea and Ashore in the 19th Century published in 1995. She is the author of The Food of Colonial and Federal America published in fall of 2005, and Giving Thanks: Thanksgiving History and Recipes from Pilgrims to Pumpkin Pie which she co-authored with Kathleen Curtin. She often speaks to historical organizations and food professional groups around the country, organizes historical dinners, and conducts classes and workshops in food history and in sustainable gardening and cooking. Sandy lives on Islesboro, an island in Penobscot where she gardens, preserves, cooks and teaches sustainable lifeways.