Baked Chicken with Sweet Onion Sauce and Buttered Mashed Potatoes

My mom's birthday was a few weeks ago, and I told her I'd cook her whatever she wanted for dinner. So, my sous chef, Judah and I headed to Fayetteville for the night to cook her a delicious meal. She requested chicken with onion sauce and buttered mashed potatoes. It wasn't difficult, but it was time consuming recipe, so save this one for a special date night.


Baked Chicken with Sweet Onion Sauce


First of all here's what you're going to need:

• 4 chicken breast halves, with the skin. (Or just regular boneless skinless, your choice)
• Fresh Rosemary (I actually used some from my garden, it was pretty much the only plant still alive...)
• 2 Large Sweet Onions
• 1/4 cup dry sherry
• 3/4 cup chicken stock (Broth is fine too)
• And the staples; EVOO, Kosher Salt and Pepper

Preheat that oven to 425 degrees and oil a roasting pan that will fit all your chicken and onions. Then season your chicken with some EVOO, S&P. Put the chicken in the pan, skin side up. Mince the rosemary very fine, and sprinkle all over chicken, but make sure to leave some for decoration! Now, cut the onions into fourths, then season them with EVOO, S&P as well. I also threw in about half a teaspoon of minced garlic as well. Throw them in the pan around the chicken. Cook this for about 35ish minutes until the chicken is golden brown. Stir the onions occasionally so they don't burn.

When the chicken is cooked through, take it out of the pan and cover it with aluminum foil and throw it in your warming oven or just put it in your microwave. Leave the onions in the oven for 5-10 minutes more at 475 degrees until very tender.

So here's where I thought I'd use a food processor but we found that using a blender on pulse was just as good! So take those yummy onions and all the juices in the pan and put them in the blender until it's creamy. Meanwhile, ask your little helper to put the roasting pan on medium heat, add the sherry and stock as needed and bring to a boil. We want to scrape the brown bits off to make a kind of gravy. Let it boil for about 2-3 minutes, until the liquid reduces. Then add the sherry sauce to the onion sauce as needed, and blend it to make it a pourable sauce.

Salt and Pepper to your taste, pour the onion sauce over the chicken, garnish with rosemary and serve!

Buttered Mashed Potatoes

There are dozens of different ways to make classic mashed potatoes, and this one is one of my favorites. Classic, creamy, fluffy BUTTERY potatoes. And the recipe is so simple you can make these any night of the week!

Here's what you'll need:

• 3 lbs. baking potatoes, peeled and cut into large chunks. (I like Yukon Gold)
• 1 1/2 sticks salted butter, at room temp. (TIP: if you forget to take your butter out, put it on the stove for a minute or two while the oven is on, it'll soften it right up)
• 1/2 cup warmed whole milk
• Minced Chives (optional, but gives the potatoes some color and texture)

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil, and add the potato chunks. Let them cook for about 20 minutes, or until you can easily stick a fork into them. Get a large bowl, and stick the potatoes through a ricer into the bowl. (If you don't have a ricer, beat the potatoes with a mixer on high speed until mashed) Then whisk (or beat) milk and butter in until you get the taste and consistency you want. So not over beat them though, because then they will loose the fluffiness. Add S&P and chives to taste, grab a fork and dig in!

For this particular recipe I knew I would eat the potatoes with the onion sauce from the chicken, so I didn't add a lot of seasoning. But you can add garlic or garlic powder, Parmesan cheese, oregano, pretty much anything you want!

Every balanced meal needs some veggies, we had corn (not pictured), but any vegetable would go great with this meal.