Valentines Day dinner

Valentines Day dinner: Steak, wine and a little bit of love

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This is one of those recipes that looks complex but is actually pretty simple. The key to it is a little-known French sauce called demi-glace. Well, it is not a “little-known sauce”, it’s one of the basic French sauces. The reduced concentrate or powder is available on Amazon or in Whole Foods.

Get two chicken breasts and ask the butcher to slice through the middle so that you end up with two sheets of half-thickness. Marinate these chicken breasts overnight (it goes a long way) for the best results.

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: English

Yield: 2 servings

Cooking Time: 1 hour

Total Time: 1 hour

Ingredients

  • 2 chicken breasts
Chicken Marinade
  • ½ tablespoon black pepper
  • 1 tablespoon white pepper
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 2 – 3 tablespoons parsley
  • 2 tablespoons garlic, crushed
  • 3 tablespoons dijon mustard
  • olive oil as required
For the Sauce
  • 1 teaspoon garlic
  • 4 – 5 mushrooms Sliced (optional)
  • butter as required
  • 4 – 5 Shallots Peeled
  • oregano a pinch
  • ½ cup demi-glace
  • salt as required

Steps

  1. Slice chicken breast through the middle so that you end up with two sheets of half thickness. Mix all the ingredients for chicken marinade, make it a paste, and then coat the chicken. Marinate these chicken breasts for a minimum of 2 hrs. (overnight for best results)
  2. Grill the chicken right the next day for lunch or dinner. I used a pan grill but a proper barbequed grill is the best. Use low heat and longer duration keeping in mind that you should flip the meat only once or twice.
  3. While that’s on the grill, let’s get the sauce ready
  4. Boil demi-glace in water as per the packet instructions. The concentration levels may vary. So be careful.
  5. After the sauce boils, keep it at a simmer to thicken.
  6. Now in a cast iron or steel pan, add butter or oil and heat it up.
  7. Slice mushrooms. Add shallots, garlic, and mushrooms. No need to slice shallots and garlic.
  8. Sautee and when it starts to brown, add oregano and salt
  9. Now add the sauce to the pan and mix them up really well. Allow it to simmer at very low heat. The warmth of the sauce is very much needed.
  10. Plate up by taking the chicken from the grill and pouring the sauce over the meat.
  11. Serve with a side of veggies or roasted potatoes.

There you go.

Notes

Chefs make demi-glace from scratch. It’s a lot of work. Here’s a video.

I’ve put in an approximate time. It all depends on how long you grill. But it shouldn’t take more than an hour.