Slow Cooker Sunday: Chicken Marengo

Slow Cooker Sunday: Chicken Marengo

Chicken Marengo is one of those classic recipes you can find in “Joy of Cooking,” it has a rich alleged back-story (you can read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_Marengo).  I was alerted to this when I was asking around for recipe suggestions to try in my slow cooker and my friend Joe (photographer extraordinaire!) sent me this one to try.

There are a lot of versions floating around so I read a bit and developed 
this one (cut out the crawfish and eggs…), popped it in the slow 
cooker and went about my day.  

Chicken Marengo

Serves 6

4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts, about 6 oz each, sliced each in half

Flour (enough to dredge chicken breasts)

Salt and pepper

EV olive oil

2 yellow onions, chopped

2 cloves garlic (crushed)

1 cup mushrooms, sliced

.5 cup of a dry white wine

1 jigger of brandy

1 14-oz can of chopped tomatoes

.5 cup of chopped parsley

.5 cup of chopped basil

1 cup olives (mixed green and black – pitted)

First step is to flour, salt and pepper the chicken breasts.  Sauté them in evoo until they are nicely golden on each side.  Remove from the pan, add the onions, garlic and mushrooms. Sauté for a few minutes, until golden.  Add chicken, items from the pan and the white wine, brandy, and tomatoes to the slow cooker.  Set to 4 hours.  After 3.5 hours, add the parsley, basil, kale, and olives.  At this point, I added some flour to help thicken the sauce. Let cook for the remaining 30 minutes, then serve.

I served this with these delicious potatoes: 

http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/roasted-potatoes-with-olives

(Note: I left out the olives and garlic and tossed them with chopped parsley and the juice of one lemon instead)