For this week’s edition of Food Gold, we’re gonna show you how to whip up a deeply satisfying and incredibly simple comfort food classic, Thursday Night Mustard Chicken. No one else refers to this as Thursday Night chicken so don’t be shocked if you bring it up in conversation (what, you guys don’t talk about mustard chicken on the reg? for shame!) and you get a blank stare. Anyways, this mofo is earthy, tangy and can be cooked in under 40 minutes. And for less than 15 bucks all in. Let’s go!

For The Chicken:

• 3-4 chicken thighs or 2 chicken breasts, either way you want them with SKIN ON and BONE IN
• fresh tarragon or thyme or chives
• olive oil
• salt/pepper

For The Mustard Sauce

• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1/2 cup canned low-salt chicken broth
• 1/4 cup heavy cream *must be heavy cream, no low fat cop outs here
• 1 or 2 tablespoons honey Dijon mustard or white wine Dijon mustard (they have it at Trader Joe’s)
• Fresh chopped tarragon
• salt/pepper

For the Mushrooms

• 1 tablespoon butter
• salt/pepper
• 2 packages of mushrooms, cleaned, dried and sliced medium/thin *cheap white mushrooms are fine, cremini are nice if you wanna splurge

Egg Noodles, ideally wide bow shaped (12 oz package)

1. In a medium skillet, melt butter until it is foamy and cook mushrooms over medium heat until they are browned and golden. Mushrooms give off A LOT of water when they are cooked, so you need to add a few pinches of salt to draw out even more water and allow them to fulfill their golden/sauteed destiny. This will take 10-15 minutes. I like to give them a little extra kick of high heat for last 90 seconds or so to crisp them up slightly.

Cooks note: you want to get your water for your egg noodles started now

2. Coat chicken with olive oil and chopped herbs and season LIBERALLY on both sides with salt.

3. In a large oven proof skillet cook chicken, skin side down, over medium/high heat for approx 5 minutes, or until skin is browned and crispy. Then cook on other side approx 3 minutes.

4. Place skillet with chicken in 375 degree oven until chicken reaches 155 degrees internally. Use your meat thermometer kids. Remove the chicken from the pan, but keep all the juices in there. You are going to use dem juices to make your sauce.

5. Return large oven proof skillet to the stove, melt butter over medium heat and then add 1/2 cup chicken stock, vigorously scrapping the bottom of the pan of brown bits to “deglaze” it. Next, add 1/4 cup heavy cream and 1 or 2 tablespoons mustard depending on how strong your mustard is and how mustard-y you like your chicken. Stir everything up real good and bring that sucka to a boil and boil let it reduce to about 1/2. If the sauce coats the back of a spoon without running, you are done. Time to add your mushrooms in. Add salt/pepper throughout to make sure the seasoning is on point. Add chicken back to sauce.

6. Cook egg noodles in salty boiling water. Completely ignore the time on the back of the package and taste, taste, taste. You want them a little bit underdone, like 85% cooked.

7. Drain noodles. Add them to the skillet with the sauce and chicken and give them a good mixy mix.

8. Garnish with chives, chopped tarragon, maybe a dollop of sour cream if you wanna go crazy.

Enjoy!

Fork The World,

Elliot