VIVA PORTUGAL! MY VERSION OF PIERRE FRANEY'S PORTUGUESE CHICKEN BREASTS WITH PEPPERS, TOMATOES & SAFFRON

French cooking legend Pierre Franey rose to fame in the United States with his 60 Minute Gourmet column in The New York Times, and today I decided to make his fabulous Portuguese recipe as a run-up to our Portuguese wine tasting this Saturday. I’d never made Portuguese food before and I was excited to see a recipe on NYT Cooking by such an esteemed chef.

Pierre writes, “This dish has a sauce based on tomatoes and is typical of casseroles found in Portugal,” so I figured it was the perfect dish to pair with one of Kevin Lepisto’s fabulous picks for Saturday. Kevin recommended Mary Taylor’s Dao Branco as a white option and Kelman’s Dao Tinto as a red option, both of which will be featured in our tasting this Saturday.

I decided to go with the Kelman's Dao Tinto option, as recommended by Kevin, because this dish contains saffron (you can opt for turmeric). It was a beautiful wine - very smooth with amazing notes of berries and spice. It was bold, yet fresh! This was surprising to me for a red wine, I'm used to being refreshed by white or rosé wines. I'm excited for everyone to try these great wines on Saturday!

Portuguese wine is certainly less known than Spanish wine, but it’s such a fun wine region that is always an unexpected find at parties. While everyone is bringing a Chardonnay or Paso Red, it’s fun to explore with a Vinho Verde or a Douro. Kevin describes Portuguese wine as having reds that are bold, yet fresh. The white wines, especially those that will be featured at our tasting, will be crisp and refreshing. Also, as someone who is on a budget, I always appreciate the price point to quality ratio when it comes to Portuguese wine.

Now, before the recipe purists come for me with pitchforks, yes, I did make changes. Lower your weapons. Some of the best additions to recipes on NYT Cooking are found in the comments section, so I did exactly that. You can find the original recipe here, but my edited recipe (with help from the lovely home chefs of the comment section) is below.

On to the cookin’!

What I used:

I only used one pot, because let’s be honest, I’m not going to clean two. Sorry Pierre, but I also need a little spice - so on the recommendation of the commenters, I added red pepper flakes. Also, one comment mentioned that “black olives will make this dish sing,” so how could I not add them?

As you can see, I’ve also changed around the order of the ingredients from the original recipe because I’m adjusting for the one-pot method. I find that if I add a little oil into the pot while using butter, it prevents the butter from burning (and me freaking out because of smoke). Anyways, sorry to any Franey purists, but this was freaking delicious.

Instructions:

Start the rice cooking process (in my case, I used a rice cooker). 

Melt the butter with a splash of oil in a dutch oven, after butter is melted add the chicken breasts and season with salt and pepper. Cook over medium heat, until browned, for 5 minutes. Turn, reduce heat, and cook until chicken is done. Check obsessively with your Thermapen Thermometer that the chicken is, in fact, completed with cooking, because you’ve been terrified of eating raw chicken for your whole life. Transfer chicken to a plate that can hold any of those flavorbomb juices and set aside.

Add ~2 tbsp of olive oil to the pan and increase heat back to medium. Add the peppers and onion slices, stirring for around 5 minutes. Add the garlic, red pepper flakes, bay leaf, thyme, and olives, and stir for 2 more minutes. Add can of tomatoes and saffron. Cover and simmer for 10 minutes. Mine ended up simmering for about 20 minutes because I always severely underestimate the amount of time it takes to cook brown rice. Because mine simmered for so much longer than Chef Franey's, mine was more stew-like whereas his peppers probably had more snap to them. Do what you'd like with that information.

Add shallot to the skillet (I made a little area in the middle of the pepper mixture and cooked it in there) and cook until wilted. Mr. Franey says not to brown it but some things are inevitable. Pour in the wine (and a glass for yourself), scraping the bottom to get those delicious brown spots incorporated into the party.

Reduce the wine, add the broth, and let cook until almost totally reduced. Add back the chicken breasts that were politely waiting on their plate (with their liquid) and bring to a simmer. Add parsley and lemon, serve atop a glorious mound of rice. Enjoy!