Chicken with cream and mushrooms

I recently ran into the friend who originally recommended Anna Del Conte's The Classic Food of Northern Italy, and she related that she had used it for a period to cook her way through several Italian regions. This reminded me that I had hardly used it even though I had not long ago promoted it to the cookbook shelves in the kitchen.

So I used her recipe for this classic flavor combination and it was very good. She calls for a chicken cut into 8 pieces (I actually did something I rarely do and bought a cut-up whole chicken so it was 10 pieces, following her direction to cut each breast in half). Then you remove the skin and rub the meat with cut lemon, brown the chicken in olive oil and put it in a casserole. Saute a finely chopped onion in butter, then add dried porcini reconstituted by pouring in boiling water and soaking for an hour, cut into small pieces. After 5 min. add about half a pound of chopped brown mushrooms. Finally, ta-da, add 10 oz. of heavy cream and some of the porcini soaking water strained through cheesecloth. Pour this mixture over the chicken and put casserole into a 350-degree oven for 30 to 40 minutes.

Great earthy mushroom flavor. We had just with sauteed broccoli, though leftovers will be served with brown rice. I'll be doing more of these recipes!