6-24: Mushroom-Almond Chicken tasted okay, but looked…odd. I’m not sure why mine came out mauve, but there you go. The picture below is definitely not mauve. This recipe was cooked in tandem with 6-8: Curried Chicken, due to an abundance of chicken.
As I mentioned before, mine came out in a slightly mauve color, which doesn’t seem to be the case on the recipe card photo. I don’t know where I went wrong, but at least it was edible.
Recipe card. Pristine, so it must be untested. My mom’s not a mushroom fan, so this wouldn’t have been one she made for us.
I tolerate mushrooms, but they’re not my first choice. In the interest of trying to eat better, I’ve been picking some up more often.
Ingredients. Remember, this recipe was made in tandem with 6-8: Curried Chicken, so all of the chicken for both recipes was browned at the same time. The wine wasn’t a port, it was a blend of several different reds that I think we got from our neighbor. Port might have been better with the mushrooms.
I chose to use sour cream instead of whipping cream (to be fair: they said you could do that), which might have been part of the reason the whole thing was weird.
Almonds weren’t sliced, so we smashed them up with a mallet.
Browning the chicken. Kind of a gory shot.
Also chose to use all thighs rather than breaking down two whole chickens. I’m not the best butcher, and I’m also kind of lazy.
If you’re making just this recipe, use the pan you browned the chicken in for your mushrooms. I used that pan for the onions and curry in 6-8: Curried Chicken, so I had to start a new pan with some butter in it for my mushrooms. I also could have used some chicken fat–I keep some in a jar in my fridge for just such occasions.
Chicken in the saucepot before adding the wine.
Wine.
All 4 burners going while cooking two recipes. Left front & back burners: 6-8: Curried Chicken. Right front & back: this recipe.
Chicken with wine & mushrooms.
Flour-water mixture to be added.
And here’s where it got weird. The sour cream mixed with the wine just turned into a creamy mauve-colored sauce. I tried reducing it down a bit to see if maybe it would thicken and darken slightly.
While I let that cook some more, I took my smashed almonds and toasted them in a bit of butter in the pan in which I had cooked the mushrooms. It gave them a bit of a salty, crusty outside which was a nice contrast to the odd chicken.
The final result, alongside that of 6-8: Curried Chicken. It was pretty good despite the weird color, however it didn’t really stand up as well when we ate the second portion as leftovers the next day. I don’t think I’d serve it again if that’s the way it’s supposed to be, but it’s very possible I messed it up somewhere along the line.
Grade: B+
