ffwD: Chicken Breasts Diable

My first thought on this week’s assignment was “Mustard’s in the sauce? Blech. Mustard. I hate mustard.” However, after eating dinner at L2O last weekend, I had the pleasure of experiencing different pairings of flavors that I thought would never go together (much less like on their own) throughout a 15-course tasting menu. For instance, I never knew foie gras would taste so good with both sweet and savory ingredients! However, there was a course in the meal that had bits of Meyer lemon zest sprinkled on top, and it tasted genuinely nasty to me. I know a two-star restaurant would never zest close to the pith, but I had the taste of pith in my mouth nonetheless. Despite that one moment of unpleasantness and in the spirit of culinary adventure, I threw caution to the wind, plunged tablespoon first into a jar of grainy German mustard, and used the full three tablespoons called for in Dorie’s chicken breasts diable. Surprisingly, the tartness from the mustard cut down the richness of the cream to the point where I actually enjoyed the mustard sauce! Who knew? I can see myself making this chicken dish again with the mustard sauce without even a second thought to the dreaded mustard. Progress!

This chicken breasts diable made as a part of French Fridays with Dorie, a group of bloggers who are cooking their way through Dorie Greenspan’s Around My French Table: More Than 300 Recipes from My Home to Yours.