Roasted Chicken and Mushroom Sauce

I tend to fish for compliments from R when we're eating a meal. "Do you like the dish?" "What is your favourite dish that I make?"

On Sunday, his answer to the latter question was "hotdogs on the bbq". Great. His favourite dish is some nitrate filled pre-packed food that he usually makes on the bbq.

Coming in second is a spiced chicken stuffed with priscuto and cheese in a white wine sauce that is pan seared and then finished in the oven.

So, I decided to make a chicken recipe in a wine sauce and came up with roast chicken covered in a mushroom and port sauce. I still have port left over from New Year's when I made Bruschetta .

Quick port story before I get to the recipe. When I lived in London, I worked at a wine bar for about 4 months. It was my first exposure to wine. Mainly, teaching me that I like to drink it.

One day, I was working the morning shift (7:30-4:00). Two ladies came in the bar, which is also a restaurant during the day. I went to take their breakfast order. Here was the exchange:

Customer: Hi. I'd like a port urlgrady and a cote. (said in a thick Scottish accent)

Me: Ok. One moment please. (I walk back to the bar and say to my Aussie supervisor -- what is a port ulgrady and a cote? He says - I don't know, take the menu to them and ask them to point out what they wany. But tell them that we don't serve alcohol before 11am).

(I return to the table)

Hi. I have the menu here, maybe you could point to what you would like to order. We have port tawny..I don't know about urlgrady. But, we don't servce alcohol until 11am. It's only 8:30am.

Customer: (staring at me blankly) NOOO! We want a port of earl grey tea and a coooke.

Me: (laughing hysterically). OOOHH. A pot of earl grey tea and a coke. Ok.

Just when I thought I was good with accents, I made an ass out of myself.

Roast Chicken in a Mushroom Port Sauce with Oven Baked Sliced Potatoes

- One chicken (maybe 3 pounds)

I use a similar recipe Giz's roast chicken. But I use more spices on the outside of the chicken -- usually mashed together in a mortar and pestal: mixed-coloured peppers, kosher salt, onion powder, garlic, spicy paprika, etc. Inside the carcass, I put lemon juice, an entire lemon, parsley and rosemary.

For the mushroom sauce, I started off with two shallots and 3 cloves of garlic. I sauted that in olive oil for a minute or so and then added about 7 medium cremini mushrooms, sliced.





After the mushrooms are cooked, I remove them from the frying pan and then add about 1/3 of a cup of port. Next time, I'll probably make it more like 1/2 cup of port, to sweeten up the sauce a bit. I let the port reduce for a couple of minutes



Then I added some chicken soup broth. After a minute or so, I added the mushroom, garlic and shallot mixture back into the sauce and added a couple tablespoons of flour to thicken the sauce (stir well).



I added some parsley and salt and pepper to taste. The mushroom port sauce made for a great topping on the chicken. Served with oven potatoes.