Chicken with white beans

I think it may just be a truism that a recipe that begins with the words ‘crisp some bacon’ is very likely to produce a delicious dish. So let me assure you that this dish is absolutely fantastic. I mean, really absolutely fantastic. And fantastic on a whole variety of levels – it’s a one dish dinner so there are very few things to clean up, it’s relatively fast to make (maybe 30-40 minutes?), it involves a simmer at the end of the preparation which gives you time to get other elements of the dinner together without rushing, and, most of all, it is absolutely delicious. Lick the plate sort of delicious. Bacon is crisped and then chicken is browned in a bit of that bacon grease. Carrots, onion and garlic is sauteed and then some wine and stock is added to make a broth. Finally, beans are added and add a lovely creaminess to the dish. If I wasn’t satisfyingly full and warm and happy-like, I’d dip in to some of the beans were left over and are now snuggled safely into a container for tomorrow’s lunch.

Good. Make it. Please? I mean, I’ll make it for you if you ask me nicely and I like you enough. Oh, and if you provide the wine, of course. (That wine in the picture? Farallon Pinot Noir, perhaps one of the best $9 Pinot Noirs you can find.) But absent that, you really do need to make this lovely little dish for yourself. Really.

Here’s the recipe:
(Which I got from here. This is a great food blog, by the way. Check out some of the other dishes. Mmmm.)

Chicken with white beans
(Serves 4)

4 strips of bacon, cut into small pieces
4 chicken breasts, sprinkled with salt, pepper, and 1/2 t dried thyme
2 carrots, peel and sliced
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped fine
2/3 cup of dry white wine
1 cup chicken broth
2 cans of white beans (I used white northern beans), drained and rinsed
1/2 t dried thyme (this is in addition to the thyme you add to the chicken breasts)

You’ll need a skillet with a lid.

Cook the bacon in the pan until crisp. Transfer that to a paper towel and drain all but a tablespoon of the grease. Return the skillet to the heat and add the chicken breasts (that have salt, pepper, and dried thyme sprinkled on it) and brown on both sides, cooking about 5 minutes on one side, 3 minutes on the other (actual times vary at least a bit, of course).

Take out chicken (which won’t be fully cooked yet — don’t worry) and put on a plate. Next in the skillet add the carrots. Saute those for 6-7 minutes, until they start getting soft. Next add the onion and saute those for about 5 minutes, until soft. Add the garlic and thyme and saute for about a minute, until fragrant but before the garlic gets browned. Next add the wine and stock, making sure to scrape up all the tasty bits on the bottom of the pan. Add the beans to the pan and then mash some of them (about 1/4 of them) with the back of your spoon. (Alternatively you can mash them before you add them to the pan, but that requires dirtying yet one more thing and so I opted to just mash them in the pan.)

Add the bacon to the pan and stir to distribute. Then put the chicken breasts back in and cover the pan, letting the dish simmer for about 10 minutes, until the breasts are cooked through. (This also lets the flavors mingle a bit and the sauce thicken.)

Serve. Try not to lick the plate. OK. Try not to lick the plate while people are watching. OK. Fine. Be shameless. Go ahead and lick the plate. I promise I won’t judge.

(I halved the recipe which worked just fine. This is a very filling meal…but a really satisfying sort of filling. This is comfort food at is most sublime.)

Maybe I’ll have leftovers for breakfast. That comes before lunch, after all.