French Friday with Dorie: Cinnamon-Crunch Chicken

A SIMPLE MEAL READY IN 10 MINUTES

The Cinnamon-Crunch Chicken is as simple and flavorful as a sauteed recipe chicken gets.  That is, if you can find all the ingredients, which can sometimes be difficult for French cooking.
 

When it comes to grocery stores and food markets, Gilbert, AZ is a Mecca.  Within 2 miles of our home there are 13 major options for my food purchasing habits.  If I drive 5 miles, there are at least that many more.  Even with all my options, I continue to strike out with many ingredients.  Items like rhubarb or other fresh foods in season in other areas of the country, some spices, ethnic foods, and common French ingredients can be tricky.  But I’m getting better at my hunt.  (For some items I’m getting good at internet shopping.)  I now know where I can find creme fraiche which used to be impossible.  It’s in a small market only 1 mile away which is on the way to our office...that has become convenient.  (Sometimes I get really lucky and find it freshly made at the Mexican store which is only 3 miles away.  They make sour cream and other cultured dairy products that are great)

But not speculoos.  Never seen them in a store anywhere.  I asked about Dorie’s suggested brand, and the store people have not heard of them.  Speculoos were good when I made them last holiday season, but those are long gone.  And Dorie advises that homemade speculoos are not great in this recipe...go for the store bought.
 

HARD CHOICE--SOMEBODY'S GOT TO DO IT

 It's my day with Honey; one of the best days of the week.  We love to shop.  Honey is quite outgoing as she shares her big smiles and waves to everyone...and her newest word is “Hi!”...gets tried out on everyone.   And it is more like “Hiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeee!”   With her along I find that people stop to chat, sometimes they follow us around stores also waving and making strange noises that adults should have grown out of long ago, and we get lots of offers for help that I never get when I go out on my own.  I used to find all this extra activity a little creepy, but I’ve gotten used to it; just comes along with Honey.  A couple of months ago we had 3 older ladies following us for at least 30 minutes all through Costco.  When I asked them why they were sticking so closely to us, they told me that Honey was smiling at them and they just could not resist following her around.

IS THIS YOUR FINAL CHOICE?

I talk to Honey the entire time we are out.  I just figure she can understand, who knows?  So I asked her what we should do about the cookie part of our recipe.  We went to the “organic” store for chicken and found a few cinnamon flavored cookies; I let her pick 2 to bring home.  Whatever we don’t use, she can just eat.  When we returned home, I told her she could choose which one to use as her guess would be as good as mine.  

HONEY LAUGHED SO HARD HER FACE TURNED RED

She thought I was funny when I told her I wanted to photograph her choice.  When we were finished with that part of our ingredient decision making, Honey found a large jar of ginger snaps and wanted one.  I said, “Good idea.  These look better than the cookies we just purchased; we’ll give them a whirl.”  And that’s what we did.  Put a couple into the food processor, no serrated knife for this American cook, and they were chunked up just fine.  (But we did not get the CRUNCH part...don’t think we would have with any of our finds.)

After sauteing the chicken in a little olive oil with salt and pepper, we added our creme fraiche-cookie mixture and brought that addition to a boil.  This dish was finished just in time.  Hubby and No. 1 Son walked through the door and were hungry.  They commented on the good smells coming from the kitchen...I had added a little cinnamon to our gingersnap-creme fraiche mixture, and both of our men really liked how the chicken was seasoned.  Something different.  To complete our simple meal I added fresh grapes and steamed asparagus....sounded French to me.  The whole cooking process took about 10 minutes.  Doesn’t get any easier.

THIS CHICKEN RECIPE IS BETTER THAN I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE--I'LL MAKE AGAIN FOR SURE

Then later Hubby confided that he has been enjoying the French cooking through this past year.  It’s been a tasty variety of foods and sometimes he wishes we did FfwD two or three times every week.  Good.  I’m very happy he has been enjoying these recipes.  He’s been a good sport to try almost every one, hasn’t complained about my shopping, finds me new cookie gadgets, and I think he tells more friends about my French cooking adventures than I do.

I’m confident that I will find that most of you also enjoyed this chicken recipe.  I look forward to reading your posts and seeing the wonderful foods you all create.